3 ms·

James Fisher's article titled 'I hate telephones' resonates so strongly with me on this topic: https://jameshfisher.com/2017/11/08/i-hate-telephones/ https://ja

James Fisher's article titled 'I hate telephones' resonates so strongly with me on this topic: https://jameshfisher.com/2017/11/08/i-hate-telephones/ https://jameshfisher.com/2017/11/08/i-hate-telephones/ (see also the associated HN comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15677560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15677560) You are 100% right- they are human interrupts that we're all subjected to just by virtue of forcing to interact with people and companies who refuse to use an asynchronous medium of communication. Horrifying

matheusmoreira 5y ago
It resonates with me as well. What a horrifying article! A phone call at 3 in the morning, waking you up from well-deserved sleep as if they had the right. If you manage to ignore this disrespect and pick up the phone -- what if some family member has suffered an accident, right? -- you find it's a god damn advertiser selling you insurance! It's enough to drive a peaceful person to violence. My parents also used to tell me to answer the phone. Why? These goddamn calls had nothing to do with me. Everyone my age used instant messengers. Even as a kid, the phone pissed me off so much I started physically disconnecting it. Peace! Until my father got home, at least. Disconnecting the phone was the quickest way to piss him off. What if some family member has an emergency? What if X? What if Y? Who fucking cares? It got to the point I didn't fucking care anymore. I'm not suffering this just because there's a chance people will call us instead of emergency services. I'd rather piss my dad off than suffer the indignity of phone calls. Leaving the phone connected was an act of cruelty towards my mother. She's too educated and polite to simply hang up on these abusers. So many times I witnessed these assholes drive her screaming mad with their lies. They'd threaten to sue her over a late payment on a magazine subscription she never had. I tried so many times to get her to just hang up the phone on these fucks! Just hang up! She would never! So I fixed it by making it so she wouldn't have to answer the phone ever again. She could finally sleep in peace! I don't agree when he compares phone calls to email spam. Spam is just text, they never leave the virtual world. They're the noise polluting the signal, nothing more. Phone calls are like giving people the ability to trigger a goddamn fire alarm remotely, as he himself said. Now that is a great analogy! It perfectly captures that feeling that compels you to stop everything and answer to the fake emergency that is the phone call. I also feel the same way about businesses. Having to call some business in order to get something done makes me physically ill. I'd always get other people to do it. I'd ask my girlfriend to do it for me because there's just no way I'm calling some company. The only thing worse is when they call me. I'm so happy nearly every business in my country has a WhatsApp contact now. I don't have to use the phone ever again for anything! If a business doesn't have a WhatsApp, they just aren't getting my money, ever. Even the goddamn ISPs have apps now that let you schedule repairs and whatnot. Trying to call these fucking companies to cancel or switch providers used to be so incredibly obnoxious people made laws regulating this. Phones are also the reason why there's so little competition between ISPs in my country. There is, or at least there used to be, a law saying if you're an ISP you need to provide public phones for people. A massive barrier to entry and completely useless! Killing the telephone is a big market? Yes, please. Where do I deposit money in order to speed it along? I want telephones to be literally wiped from this Earth. Not a single phone left anywhere.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

It resonates with me as well. What a horrifying article! A phone call at 3 in the morning, waking you up from well-deserved sleep as if they had the right. If you manage to ignore this disrespect and pick up the phone -- what if some family member has suffered an accident, right? -- you find it's a god damn advertiser selling you insurance! It's enough to drive a peaceful person to violence. My parents also used to tell me to answer the phone. Why? These goddamn calls had nothing to do with me. Everyone my age used instant messengers. Even as a kid, the phone pissed me off so much I started physically disconnecting it. Peace! Until my father got home, at least. Disconnecting the phone was the quickest way to piss him off. What if some family member has an emergency? What if X? What if Y? Who fucking cares? It got to the point I didn't fucking care anymore. I'm not suffering this just because there's a chance people will call us instead of emergency services. I'd rather piss my dad off than suffer the indignity of phone calls. Leaving the phone connected was an act of cruelty towards my mother. She's too educated and polite to simply hang up on these abusers. So many times I witnessed these assholes drive her screaming mad with their lies. They'd threaten to sue her over a late payment on a magazine subscription she never had. I tried so many times to get her to just hang up the phone on these fucks! Just hang up! She would never! So I fixed it by making it so she wouldn't have to answer the phone ever again. She could finally sleep in peace! I don't agree when he compares phone calls to email spam. Spam is just text, they never leave the virtual world. They're the noise polluting the signal, nothing more. Phone calls are like giving people the ability to trigger a goddamn fire alarm remotely, as he himself said. Now that is a great analogy! It perfectly captures that feeling that compels you to stop everything and answer to the fake emergency that is the phone call. I also feel the same way about businesses. Having to call some business in order to get something done makes me physically ill. I'd always get other people to do it. I'd ask my girlfriend to do it for me because there's just no way I'm calling some company. The only thing worse is when they call me. I'm so happy nearly every business in my country has a WhatsApp contact now. I don't have to use the phone ever again for anything! If a business doesn't have a WhatsApp, they just aren't getting my money, ever. Even the goddamn ISPs have apps now that let you schedule repairs and whatnot. Trying to call these fucking companies to cancel or switch providers used to be so incredibly obnoxious people made laws regulating this. Phones are also the reason why there's so little competition between ISPs in my country. There is, or at least there used to be, a law saying if you're an ISP you need to provide public phones for people. A massive barrier to entry and completely useless! Killing the telephone is a big market? Yes, please. Where do I deposit money in order to speed it along? I want telephones to be literally wiped from this Earth. Not a single phone left anywhere.