The phone rings, but you don't answer.. Why are phone calls heavier than ever?

"When you call me, if you are my mother I will respond, but if you are someone else, and it can be postponed, you can write it in a letter, if it is urgent and a matter of life or death, we will go to the next question: May I have anything to do for you? If not Nothing, don't call, only if I can prevent the disaster, then you can call."

This is, in short, the meaning conveyed by a cartoon that spread on social media to express the extent of some people's hatred of receiving and answering phone calls.

On the level of your personal social communication, have you noticed that many of your close circle no longer prefer to communicate through phone calls, and prefer instead written messages or audio files?

Or have you noticed that you may have become so?

It is not limited to people who are strangers to each other or who are not close enough, but may even include friends and associates.

Communication goes down another notch

According to Harvard Medical School's Harvard Health platform itself, real social connections and relationships not only give us pleasure, but also affect our long-term health in profound ways such as the ability to get enough sleep, eat a good diet, and not smoke.

There are dozens of studies proving that people who receive social support from family, friends and their community are happier, suffer from fewer health problems and even live longer.

The researchers insist that face-to-face communication is the ideal form of communication, provided that this communication takes place directly and in person rather than via video.

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By contrast, a relative lack of social connections is associated with depression and cognitive decline later in life, as well as an increased mortality rate.

One study, which examined data on more than 309,000 people, found that a lack of strong relationships increased the risk of premature death from various causes by 50%, an effect that was greater than that of obesity and physical inactivity.

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The researchers insist that face-to-face communication is the ideal form of communication, provided that this communication takes place directly and in person rather than via video.

This type of communication encourages more interaction and participation, especially in relationships between friends, as well as during business meetings.

Face-to-face communication is often more effective than written or audio conversations. This is because seeing each other allows us to perceive and understand non-verbal cues and body language.

Here it should be noted that the largest percentage of the effectiveness of our communication depends on the non-verbal aspect, so the ability to see each other helps us to understand each other better.

A report published in "Launch Workplaces" indicated that 67% of executives say that productivity will increase if bosses communicate face to face with their employees, and that certain types of written correspondence, such as email chains, can take a long time to review and respond to compared to direct communication. .

(3) Also, about 96% of executives say that they notice and value the contributions of employees in the office much more than the work done from home remotely, according to a report issued by the “Envoy” platform, which included 1,000 employees and 250 executives in the United States.

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Communication is taking another step back in favor of a new form, specifically written digital communication.

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When face-to-face communication is not possible, phone or voice calls are generally the next best option, as they still allow you to "capture" some context and meaning through tone of voice.

However, people are now increasingly ignoring the phone in favor of chatting and texting applications, not only in professional communication, but in social communication as well.

We can note here that family visits have greatly decreased, and may have disappeared, in favor of phone calls previously, which provided us with the ability to check on our friends and family by calling them by phone and hearing their voices, now phone calls have become heavy and perhaps repulsive to many, which means that communication is declining. Once again, another step in favor of a new form, namely written digital communication.

This decline confirms a 2021 study conducted by Nielsen and Bobble AI, a conversational media marketing platform. The study found that 50% of the 900 young Indian respondents aged 18-40 prefer text messages to voice and video calls.

According to the study, millennials find chatting through various messaging apps an easy and fun way to communicate.

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Day by day, text messages are taking more and more place in our daily communication both personally and professionally.

Over the past decade, the number of messages sent has increased by more than 7,700%, with more than 23 billion text messages being sent every day, or 270,000 text messages every second.

(6) During a survey of 2,000 American consumers regarding their preferred method of communication, 37.6% of respondents said that text messages are their preferred method of communication, while 30.2% said that phone calls are their preferred method.

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A margin of psychological distancing

The tendency for some to shy away from phone calls now stems from very real psychological perceptions and needs.

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Here comes the most important question: Why does this happen in the first place?

Why is direct communication becoming heavier day by day?

The straightforward answer is that when we engage in face-to-face communication, we are psychologically involved, perhaps more than we should be. For example, in situations where we feel very stressed, anxious, sad, or angry, it may become difficult to deal effectively with these strong emotions during communication. Direct contact with others, which leads us to avoid it, despite its obvious advantages such as facial expressions, body language, and eye contact.

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Stress has become an essential feature that characterizes the rhythm of modern life, which is dominated by the multiplicity of tasks, the requirements of life, and the constant desire for achievement.

Here, you may not want to deal with others in order to avoid more pressure, so you resort to digital communication and text messages that keep you at a psychological distance that separates you from the person you are talking to.

This psychological distance provides you with a sense of sufficient security, as there are no facial features that may betray you, as is the case in face-to-face communication, and no tone of voice conveys, against your will, what you want to hide, as is the case with phone calls.

The tendency of some to stay away from phone calls now is not a coincidence, then, and it stems from very real psychological perceptions and needs.

When we communicate face to face or through phone calls, there is a tendency to want to fill the silence as quickly as possible, and this desire to fill the silence can be a very stressful feeling for some.

Here texting or using text chat is more forgiving, because downtime is expected.

(3) During communication via text messages, there is no room for eye contact, no room for seeing body language or hearing the tone of voice, and perhaps no need for an immediate response. This communication provides a large area of ​​"psychological distancing."

You may not want to deal with others in order to avoid more pressure, so you resort to digital communication and text messages that keep you at a psychological distance that separates you from the person you are talking to.

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The concept of “psychological distancing” refers to our ability to “step back without an immediate response, scan the environment and think of a way to cope rather than feel the need to react immediately.”

Psychological distancing, for example, describes our ability to separate ourselves from people we don't like. Psychological distancing can also be referred to as a psychological technique that we practice when we move away from the desired situation or person so that we can gain a different perspective.

By gaining perspective, we are better able to discipline ourselves and our emotions, which can lead to discipline in our relationships.

This distancing can also help us control negative emotions.

For example, the other person may do something that makes you feel angry, then, when there is some space for psychological distance, you may realize that the person's behavior does not justify the intense emotional reaction that you wanted to show at first.

Psychological distancing acts like a wide-angle lens that enables us to see events and experiences more holistically.

(9) This may explain what one study showed that those who feel anxious when talking on the phone feel that texting allows them to be more expressive.

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Phone phobia!

Being on the phone, for many people, is a particularly complex interaction.

You have to think things through quickly, and you have to respond to what the other person is telling you.

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In addition, a report published by the BBC confirms that hearing the phone ring may make some people feel panic, in a phenomenon that specialists have known to call "telephobia", and although we rarely leave our mobile phones out of our hands these days, Many people suffer from a real and deep fear of making a phone call.

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Telephobia is a subset of social anxiety disorder, and it occurs because, for many people, being connected to a phone is a particularly complex interaction.

You have to think things through quickly, and you have to respond to what the other person is telling you.

There are some emotional symptoms that indicate a telephone phobia, including the following: avoiding making calls or having others call you, delays in making or answering phone calls, worrying too much about bothering the other person, worrying too much about what you will say during the call.

Also, physical symptoms of phonephobia may include: increased heart rate, nausea, and difficulty concentrating.

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Michael Landers, global director of Culture Crossing, a consulting firm that advises groups and individuals working in a global context, explains that in some cultures people are particularly anxious about talking on the phone.

“In Japan, it's very reluctant to talk to someone you don't know, they don't want to bother someone or embarrass themselves,” Landers says. In Indonesia, the average person sends about 100 text messages every day, while people report that they feel less comfortable with Making calls. Across cultures, fear of the phone is closely linked to fear of rejection.”

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Introverts... a special crisis

Sofia explains that introverts may tend to be slower in thinking and responding, which is not commensurate with the nature of phone calls.

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This "phobia" becomes more intense with people who are introverted by nature.

“When they invent a phone smart enough to speak for me, tell me,” Sophia Dumpling, author of the books “The Introverted Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World” and “Introverts in Love: The Quiet Path to Happily Ever After,” wrote via “Introverts in Love.” psychologytoday" about a sentiment shared by many introverts who especially hate making phone calls.

Sofia monitored some of the reasons that drive introverts to hate phone calls, foremost of which is that they consider the phone a "curious technology". When the phone rings, the expected reaction is for the person to leave what is in his hand and move away from what occupies his mind in order to return the call, and then focus only on what he says. The person on the other end of the line, then after hanging up the person can go back to focus on what they were doing.

Sofia describes this as one of the more introverted personalities, saying: "It makes my mind hurt, my mind can't change direction easily like that."

Another reason, Sophia adds, is that most phone calls are chatter that can be described as "shallow" rather than deep.

Here it should be known that introverts do not like this type of chat, and prefer real, deep conversations.

But even deep conversations don't make introverts relish phone calls, Sophia says about this: "I have friends I can have deep phone conversations with and I enjoy them, but these calls need quite a bit of time. When I make these kinds of calls, my whole day gets out of hand." his path.”

Sofia explains that introverts may tend to be more slow in thinking and responding, and this slowness is not commensurate with the nature of phone calls, as long pauses do not pass well during phone calls.

"If I'm on the phone with a talkative person, I find it difficult to express my opinion, and I end up listening for a long time, and after a while I get bored," Sofia says.

Sophia describes the introvert's mind as always busy, which makes phone calls an unbearable burden, Sophia says: "Hearing one thing and seeing another at the same time means a lot of sensory input piled on top of everything that's actually going on in our heads. It's exhausting, and often My mind then drifts into his own; and here I must force him back into the conversation.

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