David Mitchell FACLC on texting vs calling

David Mitchell asks when phone calls became so intrusive:

When and why did the very idea of making a phone call turn into something so intrusive?

When texting appeared, I suppose, but why?

Speak for yourself Mitchell. Years and years ago when I started being old enough to stay at home without supervision, one of the things I did when home by myself (besides think to myself "wouldn't it be wonderful if there was some sort of international network of computers I could look stuff up on") was enjoy not answering the phone when it rang because it was never for me.

Did we have call display and an answering machine? Nope, at least not at first. It didn't matter though because the call was never for me: unless it was my parents calling in which case anything they had to tell me could wait until they got home. Even if they were calling to say they'd be late, they'd be eventually so I just didn't pick up.

This was long before text messaging was a thing.

The point is, replying to an email is a massive chore. Replying to a text can be a small chore. Answering the phone, and having a quick chat is no chore at all, and nor is listening to an answer phone message, so let's not be afraid to do it.

After all, we managed it in the presumably more formal old days. People say that before mobiles we were less in thrall to our phones, but they're misremembering. If the house phone rang, it didn't matter what you were doing, you ran to answer it. And you answered it in its own special room of the house, whilst standing up

So much for the "no matter what you were doing" myth. It wasn't true for me and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. In fact I delighted in training myself to not go running to the phone like Pavlov's dogs.

Bonus David Mitchell on the telephone: I really wish I could get some idiots who think I want to talk with them on the phone more than once a year to stop calling more than once a week and then sounding mad that I don't want to talk on the phone. Ever.

I'm no good at all at getting people off the phone I'm terrible at doing that transition thing where you subtly indicate that although of course my true pleasure would be if this call could simply go on all day and long into the night to be ended only when one of us falls asleep or dies of starvation nonetheless in this imperfect world of ours...