I don’t think anyone answers the phone now, unless they recognize the number.
Most of the calls I get are
- spam
- spam
- someone sent me a time sensitive message, so they ring me once to respond faster
- spam
Lucky me I rarely get spam calls
Settings>Do not disturb>exceptions>Caller in contacts
alt: Set default ringtone to silent, no vibration, Set people in contacts to custom ringtones.
in ios there is a phone app setting to silence unknown callers.
American? I’m from The Netherlands and I get maybe 1 spam call every other month or so. And I’ve been using the same number for almost 25 years.
Canada, we face the same issues as the US for telecom stuff
Must be nice to a functional telecommunications agency that has the tools to punish soammers.
Oh we do too. Verizon and att make money off of selling the scammers our phone numbers and they wont spend the money to stop it
Yeah, I’m early gen-x and I only answer the phone if its a member of my immediate family and even then it’s 50/50. Capitalism ruins everything. Need to talk to me? Leave a message and I’ll decide if and when to call you back.
Everyone I want to talk to knows not to call me; I feel exactly the same. Phones used to be useful, but the sheer volume of telemarketers and scams have reduced it to uselessness. If it wasn’t for 2FA occasionally requiring a phone number, I wouldn’t even have one at this point.
You don’t always have a choice as it is dictated by the service provider, but whenever possible, disable SMS based MFA and enable TOTP or something else. SMS based MFA is susceptible to SS7 MitM attack.
Same. In the last few years (2-3 probably, I don’t count) I don’t think I have given it out anywhere. I just pretend to not have a phone number, and if people think that’s weird I don’t care, deal with it. Nowadays if a service requires my phone number, I don’t need that service. Or in rare cases I’ll try to find a free online number for receiving a code, but that’s the only alternative I take.
2FA
Use an authenticator or Yubi key. SMS authentication is the worst possible method.
I mean, maybe a hot take, maybe not … casual/social voice conversations at a distance were never a good idea in the first place.
Not absolutely at least. A disconnected voice that can summon your attention at any time wherever you are is a weird, uncomfortable, unpleasant and maybe unhealthy thing.
Textual communication at a distance odd much more natural, as it matches the disconnected communication with a more formal and abstract medium.
I get called like once or twice a week, and it’s usually something time sensitive or important. Always found people just flat out refusing to answer the phone crazy.
If: you’re a starred contact and call twice within 10 minutes and I happen to have the phone at hand and I’m pretty sure you have something important to say I’ll probably pick it up.
That happens about once or twice a year. We invented voicemail so we can speak when it works well for both parties.
Everyone I need to talk to is in my contacts. If you’re not in my contacts, my phone doesn’t even ring. You go straight to voicemail.
I was fine with phone calls when I was younger. Now it’s mostly spam robocalls or scammers or both. Nobody seems interested in solving those problems.
I am interested in solving them. Here’s how: if you get any phone call that makes you even the slightest bit irritated, you hit a button and receive a quarter paid by the caller. This is traced through carriers. If the trace cannot continue for any reason or exits US jurisdiction, the most recent carrier foots the bill. I guarantee that spam calls will suddenly cease to exist overnight.
I like the way you think.
This kind of approach solves so many problems, as the vendors have a vested interest
I don’t mind a ‘phone call’ so long as it isn’t actually using a phone number where ISPs can spy, but using some encrypted service.
There is a setting in iphone that i enabled to silence unknown caller. Havent turn it off since i enable it. I usually ignore anyone who isnt in my contacts.
I have kids and sometimes it’s important thing from a doctor/school/whatever that I want to get.
However, I’m lucky that my cell phone area code is nowhere near where I live, so if I see an area code near my phones area code, I know it’s almost certainly spam. If I get a call from near where I live, its almost certainly legitimate.
Its a great feature but I’ll do you one better (or orthogonal):
There are apps that let you set block ranges so when you get a million calls from variations of something like 1-876-543-2109, you can block all of them with basically whatever granularity you need 1+ digits) It should be built in but you have to buy it for like $3-4, but absolutely worth it
“A voice note is just like talking on the phone but better,” says Susie Jones, a 19-year-old student. “You get the benefits of hearing your friend’s voice but comes with no pressures so it’s a more polite way of communicating”.
Gross, voice notes are the worst of both worlds.
Text for things that are information critical, phone calls for things that are time critical.
Email for business (and keep the original chain going instead of starting a new one every time you think of something else to add!), text messages for associates, chat apps for friends and family.
Anyone who disagrees is wrong.
I mostly agree, but I think voice notes for close friends/family probably have a point.
At this point, I would also argue that texts/emails are also for time critical things since voice calls are essentially dead at this point.
99.99999% of the phone calls I get are spam. I haven’t gotten a new voice mail in like 6 months.
They are the worst unless you want to hear that person’s voice.
Yeah, voice notes are the “your solution to your problem is somewhere in the middle of this 20 minute long YouTube video that could have been a short forum post with some screenshots instead” of the communication world.
Jesus, it’s not just me! It seems like every answer I need is only found in a video format without labeled bookmarks/sections. I hate it so much. Give me a how-to with concise instructions and gifs, or give me death.
Can’t get ad revenue on a short, concise, and helpful page.
Even a basic cookie recipe requires someone’s whole life story to fill in the blank space between 10 ads
I’ve actively told any friend that send me a voice note that if you want me to respond to you don’t send it as a voice note, I won’t listen to it. It requires me to put headphones in or play it on speaker, and neither of those are happening unless it’s important.
hard agree, voice messages are the worst of both worlds, you can’t look at it and get the gist of what’s said, and you have to deal with listening to it, while requiring more bandwidth to use.
I’ve told my friends instead of pressing the voice button, just press the speech to text button, I’m more likely to read a wall of text than listen to a voice message.
Voice notes are pretty great when you’re driving.
Eh. Gen-x here. I still have an hour long phonecall over signal with my best friend over signal two times a week or so.
In my teens I wasn’t too happy about making phonecalls either, but working on a helpdesk for a while sure cured that.
The US has a do not call list. The vast majority of robocalls are illegal scams which originate from outside of the country.
So those calls are not for the benefit of US companies?
Who knows?
We know the call center is not US-based, as those can be fined.
I’d venture most are scams too.
Like I said, they’re mostly scams. Warranty scams. Posing as “your bank” (which they, of course, don’t name). Etc. Legitimate companies follow the do not call list, since there are heavy penalties if they don’t.
Gotcha. That sucks.
The majority of them are run from scam call centers in India, but also in Southeast Asia.
Even worse, many of those scammy companies use the Do Not Call list as a list of known active numbers. Since the DNC is an opt-in thing, the call centers know that people have proactively added their numbers to the list.
Canada as well.
I don’t really get the whole not answering the phone thing. I hate phonecalls but I always answer my phone.
The amount of important calls I’d have missed if I buried my head in the sand like that is insane.
Sure if 90% of the calls were sales or scams I’d think differently, but there are ways to prevent that too.
I find it weird that everyone has their phone on silent all the time too. If mine was on silent I’d never look at it unless I’m bored.
You realize that it still vibrates when on silent, so you know when you’re getting a text or phone call right?
Only if it’s right by you or isn’t in your bag or something. Hence audible alerts, they break through the physical barriers.
Important news almost never comes via phone call. It comes in the mail or via email.
Tell that to the delivery driver that called me because they were outside with my groceries.
I get those notifications via text message.
Cool, with the phone on silent (which I don’t do) I’d have missed that too, and would have been cancelled and rescheduled.
This adamant denial that phone calls are useful is weird.
I never said they’re not useful for anyone. They’re not useful for me.
It’s pretty obvious why lol.
90% of the calls I receive are spam.
Calling demands that I pick up the phone RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Bitch, if it ain’t a life threatening emergency I’m not dropping everything I’m working on for you.
Texting allows me to respond when it’s convenient for me.
Text generally takes 3 seconds to get the point across instead of having a whole conversation about it
God, or worse, a conversation around the conversation you’re actually speaking in order to have
Wouldn’t hate phone calls if it didn’t feel like somehow call quality and stability is the worst it’s been in my general area in a good decade. I’m sure it’s the big telecom guys cheaping out on towers and shoving far far far too many connections onto already oversaturated connections.
Well that and the endless spam lmao
I can’t speak for others but as an older millennial, I grew up liking spending time on the phone with friends and loved ones. However in my adult life, I spent being anxious waiting for phone calls regarding job interviews and outcomes of them, and even being interviewed on some of them, including those without much notice. I also had to make calls to follow up things urgently or if I’m in trouble. As a result, I started to equate phone calls as mostly negative experiences.
I’m an older millennial. I enjoyed talking on the phone until I was something like 12. Texting wasn’t a big thing yet then, but messengers on the internet were. So I realized there were better ways of communicating.
When I was in college, I was hit by a car. I was poor and had no health insurance. That led to endless calls from debt collectors. That led to anxiety related to the sound of a phone ringing. I have not answered the phone to unknown numbers since then. My life is better for it.
I only occasionally listen to voicemail, and most of the time, it’s a doctor’s appointment automated reminder. The rest of the time, it’s usually spam. No point listening.
Anyone who knows me and needs or wants to get in touch with me knows how to do so and knows not to do so by phone call. Anyone else is unimportant.
Also older millennial. I found a two minute star wars themed wait message that i recorded and am using. The number of VMs from spam I receive is practically zero. Number of VMs from Publishers Clearing? Unfortunately also zero.
99% of phone calls is typically a capitalistic company forcing employees to sell us something.
So yes… I’m not gonna pick up. Leave a voicemail 👍
99% of phone calls is typically a capitalistic company
forcing employeesusing chatbots to sell us something.employees are so 2010, FIFY
