Capell Flooring and Interiors - Meridian, Boise, Nampa, Idaho Flooring Store: Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore

Happy Saturday! - Hope you have a great weekend!

The telephone swept into Americans' lives in the first decades of the 20th century. Alexis Madrigal in The Atlantic tells us that, at first, no one knew exactly how to telephone. Alexander Graham Bell wanted people to start conversations by saying, "Ahoy-hoy!" AT&T tried to prevent people from saying "hello," arguing in Telephone Engineer magazine that it was rude.

But eventually, Americans learned to say "hello." People built a culture around the phone that worked. Etiquette magazines tried to prevent women from inviting people over for dinner via telephone, then gave in. The doctor got a phone, so the pharmacist got a phone. It didn't happen quickly, but it happened.

Before ubiquitous caller ID or even *69 (which allowed you to call back the last person who'd called you), if you didn't get to the phone in time, that was that. You'd have to wait until they called back. And what if the person calling had something really important to tell you or ask you? Missing a phone call was awful. Hurry!

Early on, not picking up the phone was, at the very least, rude and quite possibly sneaky or creepy or something. Besides, as the phone rang, there were always so many questions and so many things to sort out. Who was it? What did they want? Was it for … me?

This became a kind of cultural commons that people could draw on to understand communicating through a technology. When you called someone, if the person was there, they would pick up and say hello. If someone called you, if you were there, you would pick up, and you would say hello. That was just how phones worked. The expectation of pickup was what made phones a synchronous medium.

But now, in 2022, no one picks up the phone anymore. Even many businesses do everything they can to avoid picking up the phone. The reflex of answering—built so deeply into people who grew up in 20th-century telephonic culture—is gone.

There are many reasons for the slow erosion of these commons. The most important aspect is structural: There are simply more communication options. Text messaging and its associated multimedia variations are rich and wonderful: words mixed with emojis, Bitmoji, reaction gifs, regular old photos, videos, and links. Texting is fun, lightly asynchronous, and possible to do with many people simultaneously. It's almost as immediate as a phone call, but not quite. You've got your Twitter, your Facebook, your work Slack, your email, and FaceTime's incoming from family members. So many little dings have begun to make the rings obsolete.

But in recent years, there has been a more specific reason for eyeing my phone's ring warily. Perhaps, 80 or even 90 percent of the calls coming into my phone are spam of one kind or another. My phone only rings one or two times a day, which means that I can go a whole week without a single phone call coming in that I (or Apple's software) can even identify, let alone want to pick up.

There are unsolicited telemarketing calls. There are straight-up robocalls that merely deliver recorded messages. There are cyborg telemarketers who sit in call centers playing prerecorded bits of audio to simulate a conversation. There are spam phone calls whose sole purpose seems to be verifying that your phone number is real and working.

The Federal Communications Commission has been trying to slow robocalls for at least half a decade, but it seems to have yet to do much to stem the tide.

It seems as long as the bots and the scammers continue to dominate the rings, those of us who seek real communication with others will happily stick to the dings.

Most calls to my personal cell phone are junk calls, and even with our business line, at least half aren't real customers either. Do you find most of your calls aren't people you want to talk to as well? Let me know, and thanks for reading.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,