Slashdot Mirror
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.
A lazy dungeon master?
Other than that ... no idea.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
Slack is a currently-trendy, corporate messaging/notification/collaboration system. DMs would be the Direct Messaging (person-to-person) subset of that.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
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.
If I need to contact someone, I might send a text. I might send an email. Occasionally I might even make a phone call. But what I'll NEVER do is use some silly unknown system like the one listed in this Slashvertisement just because some venture capitalist felt like bankrolling some late-comer to the messaging game.
#DeleteChrome
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.
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.
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.
Exactly. If you read "technology A sucks compared to technology B (popular/generic) and technology C (which no one has heard of), you can bet that this is solely a marketing tool for technology C. This is a slashvertisement, plain and simple.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause