I hate telephones
I’m probably a bit the other way in that I get frustrated with text messages going back and forth and back and forth when a one minute phone call will sort everything out far more efficiently. Probably also has something to do with hating tapping away at tiny virtual keyboard on the phone, too.<p>My teenage daughter seems very reluctant to make a phone call. Watching her try and organise something with her friends drives me a bit spare as it involves hours of waiting for poorly worded, ambiguous messages on Facebook or texts, with me suggesting several times, “Why don’t you just call them, and get it all figured out right now?”<p>On the other hand, watching my Dad buy a new mobile phone is really fun. The salesperson is trying to up-sell him on all the features of a phone, “You have unlimited texts, and it has an app to make you taller, and…” and my Dad just keeps asking, “Yeah, but can it make phone calls?”<p>I guess I fall somewhere in between.<p>I do find, when there is a scene in a TV show or movie where someone’s phone keeps ringing incessantly and they keep cancelling it while trying to have the deep and meaningful conversation with someone wanting to yell, “Don’t you know how to turn your phone off?!”<p>I do hate voicemail. Not so much leaving them, but having to check them. Probably because I hate any “interactive” system that involves sentences like, “To hear a list of all the ways technology has improved your life, please press one…”<p>Unsolicited calls to mobiles is not a big thing in Australia (yet) so I’m lucky there.<p>On the home line, I have an old analogue modem to pick up caller ID information for incoming phone calls using NCID[1].<p>When a call comes in:<p>* Automatically pauses the music player on my PC.<p>* Looks up the number in my address book, and displays the information on my screen. Also sends to the two Kodi&#x2F;OSMC servers, for people watching TV.<p>This assumes it is not on my block-list. If it is on my block-list of known scammer and telemarketer numbers then it as automatically answered with a recording of the “This number has been disconnected…” message to try and trick them.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ncid.sourceforge.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ncid.sourceforge.net&#x2F;</a>