Phone Calls Are So Last Century
24th March 2011
Many people are realizing that random phone calls are just not considered polite any more. They’re somewhat interruptive and can be annoying. What strikes me as really interesting is that this isn’t a case of just the “younger generation” feeling this way — but it’s actually true of many older people as well.
I’ve always hated people just calling me up and wanting to talk, unless it’s some time-dependent thing (e.g. ‘I’ll be in your neighborhood this morning, let’s have lunch’). It always suggests to me the attitude, ‘Whatever you’re doing isn’t as important as talking to me.’ Perhaps we ought to re-establish the concept of the ‘at-home’, e.g. ‘I’ll be at-home on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., if you want to call and just talk, that’s the time to do it.’ But I suppose that would take more social coordination than we can handle in this impulse-dominated culture. It would be very convenient, though, for people who can’t cope with e-mail.