3 ms·
How do you screen calls / distractions on your smartphone?
Like many people, I get a lot of spam calls.
My original workaround was using "Do Not Disturb" mode in iOS, and a whitelist of people who could break through. This seemed to greatly reduce, but not eliminate the calls.
However, the whitelist also blocks recruiters, job interviewers, or people calling from a different line.
Also, I give out my Signal number to a lot of loose ties, and DND only applies to voice calls/SMS not Signal - so often when I intended to only be reachable by my close friends and family I'll instead be pinged by someone wanting to chat.
How does HN screen their mobile calls/messages? I love the utility of my smartphone, I'd never trade it for a dumb phone. But I wish there was a better way to set some kind of medium mode between "turned off" and "accessible to anyone who has my contact info".
- jakamau 8y agoIt's a bit of a low tech filter, but I intentionally selected a phone number with an unusual area code. It's an area code that I will most likely never travel to or do business with. With the glut of spam calls that attempt to spoof local exchanges, whenever I see a phone call that uses my phone numbers area code and local exchange I know I can ignore it. If I received a phone call from a geographically close region I can be relatively certain they have my phone number for a reason.
- simonblack 8y agoIf I don't see a known number or known contact when the phone rings, I let it go to VoiceMail. I have an answering message for VoiceMail that contains two things: the tones that signify "this number not in use" and the terse 'leave a message'. The tones kill off the autodiallers that most scam/cold-call diallers use. The 'leave a message' is for the few real people that are on the other end of the line. Anybody who doesn't leave a message will be ignored, and only the (very few) voicemails that I select to answer will be followed through.