20 years ago I was actually really excited whenever my mobile rang. Cell services were still fairly new, and heck, we could just talk to anyone pretty much anywhere? Technology is awesome!
Today I seem to become anxious and nervous as soon as the phone starts ringing. What could be so important and urgent that a message doesn't suffice?
@aaribaud @fribbledom Lady Gaga's "Telephone" is a good marker of this shift. Previously, telephones in songs tended to represent connection and togetherness, like in "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and the like. But Gaga and her listeners experience phone calls mainly as unwelcome interruptions, and the song reflects that.
@fribbledom same here!
@fribbledom I totally agree.
After the latest wave of spam calls I don't answer unknown numbers anymore. Calls from foreign countries do not make sense in my life.
@fribbledom somebody calling me is literally the only reason my phone makes any noise ever.
@fribbledom Same here… With all the spam-calls I do have a call-blocker in place blocking everything not being in my contacts or added to a (prefix-based) allow-list…
@fribbledom Totally get this 👍
@fribbledom Yeah I can relate very much to this. I don’t like when my phone is ringing. I like my phone. But for me it’s all about internet / information search.
@fribbledom "Who the fuck is calling now"
@fribbledom The phone (the actual calling-on-the-phone part of the phone) has become very much like the mail: a vector for torrents of spam, the occasional "real" business-to-customer communication (bills, etc.), and... pretty much nothing else, ever. We could do away with both and society would continue to function just fine, I think.
@fribbledom
Remember when you could suddenly call long distance for "free?" (Same price as any other call)
That was so liberating!!
@fribbledom today your cellphone ringing is a threat
@fribbledom just a few weeks after I started putting my mobile on mute for several hours a day and educate my peers that I am not available whenever they want but when I want.
This availability expectation stresses me out.
@fribbledom Was in kindergarten 20 years ago but I share your anxieties over phone calls in this milieu :-(
@fribbledom That's pretty much *the* difference between how the generation before mine communicates and how the one after does it: a shift from synchronous (immediate or none) and vocal to asynchronous (delayed) and text-based.