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Don't Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone (And the Network)
Ever screamed at your phone, or wanted to, when it can't handle the basic job of linking you to another person by voice? antdude writes to say that The Atlantic has posted a long article titled "Don't Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone" about how our telephone habits have changed, but so have the infrastructure and design of the handset. A snippet: When you combine the seemingly haphazard reliability of a voice call with the sense of urgency or gravity that would recommend a phone call instead of a Slack DM or an email, the risk of failure amplifies the anxiety of unfamiliarity. Telephone calls now exude untrustworthiness from their very infrastructure.
Going deeper than dropped connections, telephony suffered from audio-signal processing compromises long before cellular service came along, but the differences between mobile and landline phone usage amplifies those challenges, as well.
Our office uses IP phones and for inter-office calls they work great. However once you connect with someone out of the office or (god forbid!) host a conference call, it becomes a mess of awkward pauses, people talking over each other, and general telephone etiquette mayhem. They usually devolve into people making a point that they are done speaking so that the next person can, walkie-talkie style.
What fiendish method of communication is a Slack DM?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
As a millenial, phonecalls never made sense to me. Unless I actively want to hear your voice (my parents for example) then i have an infinite and vastly superior cadre of resources with which to communicate. Another supreme irritation is when I email a person, but they call me back. maintain parity and answer the email. Accosting me for details just means im going to keep pointing you to the email.
But phones? no. Voicemail hell no. my voicemail is a tire fire of unanswered phonecalls from recruiters, cold callers, advertisers, sales droids, scammers, you name it. Bell make sure my generation never, ever wanted to use the telephone when they turned a blind eye to the fact that it was becoming a haven for garbage calls. comcast and company also turned me off to phones by reminding me how much i absolutely hate hanging on the line, waiting endlessly for some ESL speaker to fumble through my question or "escalate" me to another call center.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Do people have troubles making phone calls nowadays? Is the US telephone network so fragile?
I can't remember having had any trouble making a phone call and have never had a connection dropped, so I'm wondering what this article is about.
Ever since I learned about Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" published in The Atlantic and available online on their site, I have felt that The Atlantic has been doing a good job.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=...
http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...
When it comes to extortionate practices, horrible customer service, bait-and-switch special plans, secret data caps, unlimited but not really unlimited data, throttling, and any number of other things I've seen, I have oh so many more reasons to hate the cellular phone company than just this.
I don't like phone calls, not because they demand your immediate attention, but that it's hard to go back over what's been said and gives you no mechanism to figure out exactly what you want to say before you say it.
Phone calls never made sense to you because you were too wrapped up in yourself to listen to the other person. There is a whole lot more communication in the intonation and pace of speaking than there is in a text message. I suggest you actually listen to people when they're speaking to you instead of thinking up a rebuttal. Your life will be much more pleasant.
This is a slashvertisement for Slack.
Not appreciated.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
We have these devices in our pockets that connect us with the rest of the world instantaneously, the vast majority of people expect because they pay some kind of amount ever month that these things are supposed to work flawlessly every single time. This kind of thing was mind boggling a generation ago, even up until a few years ago if you wanted to be sure something got done, you had to talk to someone on the other end of the phone line, a delivery will be made, a bank account opened, etc. I get that younger generation grew up with pretty much instant gratification for everything, but that doesn't make it right. The technology has outpaced our ability to get used to it we basically went from sending smoke signals, to being connected to all the collective knowledge of humanity overnight, there is no wonder that people are complaining about stuff. Technology is not perfect, it will not work 100% of the time, there is not a machine built since the beginning of time that will, get over it. Very few people do not even realize what it takes to get they call to connect when it actually does work, that kind of thing was called magic a few years ago.
What an over-complicated load of bollocks.
Phone communication is instant and interactive. Failures are highlighted more by their very nature, where a text (or whatever) might have 'failed to send' a dozen times invisibly before it actually gets sent.
That, and people are stupid, impatient chimps.
-Styopa
Something in the way they work causes my wife's voice to cut out randomly when talking to me on the phone especially if there's background noise. I don't seem to have that problem with other people just her, so maybe she has a unique voice frequency that it rejects as noise. (*insert joke here*) We've tried different brands of phone and the problem persists.
Look, I love my iMobilePersonalComputingDevice, it does an unbelievable number of things pretty darn well. But as a phone, it sucks. The sound is terrible, the form factor is less than ideal for a phone conversation, the connection can be spotty. For a 5-minute quick check in it's fine, but I had a friend call me yesterday for what turned out to be a 2-hour heart-to-heart about the meaning of life, and it was excruciating.
Yes, texts and other media are often superior to voice. But part of the reason millenials don't like to call is that the phones are terrible. Given the design constraints inherent in mobile devices, that's probably not going to change.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
1. Who encounters problems with voice calls?
There are parts of the Earths surface that have mountainous terrain. This mountainous terrain, which is more and more being used by mankind for habitation purposes, has a tendency to have less robust cell coverage. To those who live near or in mountainous terrain, cell coverage can be spotty and problematic.
2. Why make voice calls at all?
Voice calls are better at reflecting the true intention of the communicating parties. Texts and emails can leave out the true intentions of the message. Voice calls can make discussions much more precise between communicating parties where nuance may be critical.
3. Why the concern about the quality of voice calls via cell?
Ahh, now we come to it. Once upon a time there was a telephony network in the US that was mostly reliable and had high quality. Regardless of your phone, you could expect a high degree of audio communication, via talking(a communication technique pioneered several millennia ago). Communication via "talking" via cell now is akin to cb or walkie talkie in regard to quality.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
As a millenial, phonecalls never made sense to me.
Really? You never talk to anyone using your voice? Were you one of those kids who text messages the person sitting right next to you? I hate talking on the phone myself but there are plenty of times it is the most effective means of communication. It is far faster than email for many data dumps and it communicates emotion and nuance light years better. I type fast but I talk much faster. If I need to give you a core dump about an issue and deal with it quickly I'm probably going to call when typing would take too long.
Unless I actively want to hear your voice (my parents for example) then i have an infinite and vastly superior cadre of resources with which to communicate.
That depends very much on exactly what you are trying to communicate. Talking on the phone can be VASTLY faster and more effective than email, IM, twitter, facebook and other forms of communication in a lot of circumstances. Some things are difficult to communicate adequately via email. Asynchronous forms of communication are generally very impersonal, slow, and frankly I deal with enough email as it is. The last thing I want to do is spend more time emailing.
Another supreme irritation is when I email a person, but they call me back. maintain parity and answer the email.
Not everyone types very well. I work with several people who can't type quickly for various reasons. Sometimes calling is a faster way to address the problem. You might prefer email but your preferences are not the only ones that matter. I don't care for talking on the phone either but if it gets the job done, so what? I care that the problem gets handled, not the medium it gets handled through.
Accosting me for details just means im going to keep pointing you to the email.
At which point the other person will declare you to be an uncooperative jerk. I absolutely loathe talking on the phone but if I've bothered to pick up the phone and call you there is a damn good reason for it. Answer the call, be courteous and helpful. If you point me back to email when I've bothered to call you I'm probably going to get pissed off at you. If it is a telemarketer, hang up and block the number.
But phones? no. Voicemail hell no.
Voicemail has its place. I use google voice which records and transcribes the voicemails I get. The problem with voicemail isn't the actual message, it's the shitty interface that has been put on it traditionally. Now that I can quickly read my voicemails I rarely actually have to listen to them and voicemail has become fairly useful. Sometimes someone needs to reach you and email isn't the right format or maybe all they have is a phone number. Voice mail allows them to communicate with you when you can't take the call which is genuinely useful.
I've always hated voice mail because of peoples tendencies to leave crap messages. So not only do I need to go through the extra steps going through voice prompts and entering passcodes...
That's not a problem with voicemails, it's a problem with the interface of voicemail systems. Traditional voicemail systems have had TERRIBLE interfaces. More recent ones like Google Voice are much, much better. I now get a transcription (crude but usually effective) and a wav file if I need to actually listen to it.
Also just as bad as "call me back" without giving me a reason WHY you need to talk to me, if you don't give me a reason to treat you more urgently than others then you're going to the bottom of the list.
Sometimes there are very good reasons to not indicate precisely what you want to talk about in a voicemail. For example a doctor's office isn't going to leave sensitive information for you in a voicemail or explain exactly why they are calling. Messages might be sensitive or embarrassing. If it is a friend they probably just want to talk to you just because so no specific reason should be necessary. You should probably have a pretty good feel for the relationship and urgency. If it is time sensitive then they should know to indicate that.
Another supreme irritation is when I email a person, but they call me back
I agree with a lot of what you said. But this one can actually make sense, provided the person has a valid reason to call you instead of e-mailing. If you asked a question that can be answered in a sentence or two, then the response should absolutely be an e-mail. But if you asked a question that requires clarification, or has a complicated answer and the responder doesn't know how much background information you already have, then some form of real-time communication makes a lot more sense.
If you call me and I don't answer, I'll call back.
Provided you're on a line with Caller ID. Many landlines still do not because not every head of household thinks it's worth an extra $100 per year. Voicemail at least contains the caller's phone number.
Another supreme irritation is when I email a person, but they call me back. maintain parity and answer the email.
Consider this sequence of steps:
1. Receive and read e-mail.
2. Disconnect from the Internet while maintaining connection to telephone network.
3. Think of reply to e-mail.
The following options are available:
A. Make a phone call.
B. Wait hours until you are again connected to the Internet through a device with a keyboard with which to compose an e-mail.
C. A third option (please describe in detail)
What criteria would one use to choose between these two? If neither, what is your third option?
I used to work with someone who loved to say that all the time, and I can tell you, that's a great way to alienate your co-workers! They were insecure because they anchored their self worth to others perception of their technical prowess. That is not a great way to draw self worth, but in this workplace they were completely out of their depth, and the spiraling insecurity meant they felt an even greater need to interject themselves into technical conversations. It got pretty bad, if any of us were having a conversation and saw them in the hall we would run for it. In that case, I have to agree, a-ny-thing other than a call or face to face conversation was a better form of communication.
unless perhaps I am talking to someone with a $500 phone that don't do voice calls worth a crap :/
Since only half the calls sound like crap I am guessing it is not my end. LOL, almost 8 year-old flip phone :) I can't believe the battery in this still works, but as long as it does...
Amen to the call quality. I was there when it "happened". My first technical job in my early 20s was installing car phones in the late 1980s. I worked my way up to service department manager. In the early 1990s I was given by the carrier a batch of these new-fangled digital cellular phones to give for free (worth thousands each) to our best customers as part of their nationwide beta test. My customers vehemently hated them - one wanted it removed immediately. They said things like "The voice sounds metallic." and "It sounds like I'm in a tunnel!", etc. Sound familiar?
I was told by my boss to tell the customers that software upgrades would fix such issues over time. That never happened. Today I loathe cellular phones at either end of my conversations. Even at that time, you could clearly see with an RF spectrum analyzer what was going on: the normal analog bandwidth for 1 call was being split into 3 calls, with quality being the trade-off. It's probably even worse today.
Phones/calls were very expensive back then; I remember the roaming rate for Los Angeles was $0.90 per minute. So it's no wonder that most folks today are unaware that the original cellular phone calls were just as good as a landline call - no awful distortion, no noticeable delay - I'm not exaggerating (assuming you had coverage, of course).
I have a phone that can do 1080p60 with complex 3d scenes. It can run games written with the Unity engine. I can seed torrents and watch 1080p60 youtube videos at the same time.
But the phone sound quality? About as good as 20 year old landline.
What the fuck?
Except when it doesn't in that there's no record to refer back to and others that were cc'd in the original email might be interested in the content. Sometimes voice is appropriate but not as an excuse for not using other means. I can't text well but I still make the effort when I think it's more appropriate. If someone's that hard pressed to compose an email then he should find a secretary.
I work in a call center. The quality of the majority of calls is totally wretched.
Especially in America with so many foreigners and people with non-Christian names, it's hard to understand people
and then find them in our databases.
I think the better question is "Why do we put up with such horrible service from the cell providers?".
Sigh. I pine for the old Pin-Drop Days.
I have a phone that can do 1080p60 with complex 3d scenes. It can run games written with the Unity engine. I can seed torrents and watch 1080p60 youtube videos at the same time.
But the phone sound quality? About as good as 20 year old landline.
Lucky you. Most phones can't do anywhere near the quality of a 20 year old land line. The very first phone call was probably of better call quality than any modern cell phone.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I love talking to people on the phone! Especially when it is to deliver bad news or to tell them that, no, my boss isn't in the office (just like every other day of the week, just like when you called me 2 hours ago), and no, he hasn't responded to my emails regarding the computer issues you're having, and no, he hasn't given my account the required privileges to remote in and fix it for you. This is pretty much how I spend every business day. Once in a while I even get to fix computers!
Browsing the web, watching videos, and playing games are the most common uses for smartphones followed by non-voice based communication. That dropped call might be annoying, but it appears to be only a problem for a small number of users. So why bother?