> In fairness, a lot of people were probably conditioned pre-answering machine to phone calls being a less common thing and that if you didn't pick up, who know

> In fairness, a lot of people were probably conditioned pre-answering machine to phone calls being a less common thing and that if you didn't pick up, who knows who called and why? I grew up during this transition, phone calls to our family's landline were considered important so you'd always pick up when it rang. Fast forward to nowadays: I actively ignore phone calls. I don't live in the US so never had the nightmarish experience of robocalls all the time, and still if some number which is not my immediate family's or close friend's calls me without a previous heads-up (can be just a message "can I call you around time X?") I ignore it. I don't know what it is about phone calls but they became increasingly disruptive, even without robocalls there are a lot of marketing calls, phone companies trying to upsell me, some random recruiter trying to reach me during working hours. Picking up the call takes me to a different universe, I simply don't want to be interrupted like that.