There are many things that are much, much worse about the modern age relative to past times. Politicians, quality of beer, ease of dealing with utilities / government departments, traffic, grammar, bartenders, music and television programmes are just a few. But to be fair, there are many things that are a whole lot better. The one thing I am most thankful for is how easy it is to communicate these days, and more importantly, how many different ways are now available to contact someone (or even a number of people at once) quickly and efficiently. Because for me, technological advances are helping to eradicate one of the big irritants in my life - the unexpected phone call.
Those of us who grew up in the time before E-mail and the smartphone were invented all know the feeling. You're either sitting at home relaxing or in the office working away and all of sudden, the clarion call of the telephone starts up. Straight away, a level of anxiety kicks in and a million thoughts go through your head. "I'm not expecting a call, so who can it be calling? Is it a family member to tell me someone's died? Is it a client ringing to tell me off for being late with a document? Or is it some windbag with nothing better to do calling to drone on for half an hour about nothing in particular and waste my time?"
You really don't want to pick up, but because it might be important, you sort of have to. And also, in the days before answering machines, if you didn't pick up, you know the bloody thing is going to make a racket for a good 2 minutes more, so you might as well deal with whatever it is now rather than having to listen to that again.
Of course, most of the time it was usually OK, and you could often deal with what needed to be discussed quickly and get back to what you're doing. But it was those odd occasions where the caller kept me on the line for way longer than I cared to be or the tenor of the call was quite unpleasant that has forever made the telephone my least favourite medium for communication.
You can call this an over-reaction if you like, and it's not true in all cases, but making an unannounced phone call to someone is an inherently selfish act. Sure, the time might be convenient for you, and you know what you want to discuss, but the person on the other end of the line has no idea what's about to hit them. Also the timing might be completely bad for them, and with the advent of mobile phones, they might be in a place where it's just not possible for them to talk. Many is the time I've been travelling on a jampacked tram or worse, at a urinal taking care of business, and bang, the phone has gone off in my pocket. Hardly a good time to run through that 70 page agreement now, is it? Also you wouldn't suddenly barge into someone's house and start talking at them while they were taking a shower, but until recently it was quite a common thing for people to jump dripping wet out of the bath to go answer a call. When you look back at it, it's quite bizarre how this malign piece of plastic kept us all in its thrall.
Happily, whether it was for these types of reasons or just coincidental technological advances, about 30 years ago communications started to improve out of sight and helped mitigate the worst aspects of telephone calls. Answering machines meant that if the phone rang at 2am, before getting up to answer, you could lie in bed and wait and see if it really was a death in the family or just another blind drunk friend who'd arrived home from the pub. Later on, call identification let you see who was ringing you, thereby giving balance to the caller-recipient dynamic and allowing the recipient to make an informed decision about whether to answer or not. The call blocking feature enabled you to enjoy the happy experience of eliminating telemarketers from your life. And best of all, with the advent of E-mail, you could answer all those pesky little questions in a fraction of the time that it used to take on the phone, and without all the attendant pleasantries talking about the weather, footy and how little Johnny is going at his new school.
Over 25 years plus of working, I've observed too how people's methods of communication have changed to accommodate and embrace the new technology. E-mail and short form messaging services like Whatsapp, SMS and Wechat are great for disseminating information to a large group of people in a speedy and efficient manner, and also allow recipients the courtesy of responding when it suits them to do so, rather than on the spot when they are not ready. Video conferencing software such as Skype or Facetime are starting to become more prevalent. These types of media also overcome another severe limitation of the phone call, in that it is impossible to read body language by engaging with a disembodied voice down a phone line and frustratingly, means that you can't properly grasp the caller's reaction to what is being discussed.
Of course, the telephone will still be around for a good while yet, but pleasingly most people are starting to use it with a bit more etiquette. It's just good manners nowadays to message someone with "Is now a good time to talk?" and if it is, and I get that message, then like most people I'm generally happy to chat.
But for the telemarketers, the people who ring when you're in the shower or in the dunny, and those of you who ring at 2:30am after you've had a skinful .... you'd better get used to a lot of voicemails and disconnected signals in your immediate future. We are your no longer your patsies, and you can not make us answer your calls.
