街道纪工委工作报告:Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You

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Cultural Studies

Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You

NOBODY calls me anymore — and that’s just fine. With the exception ofimmediate family members, who mostly phone to discuss medical symptomsand arrange child care, and the Roundabout Theaterfund-raising team, which takes a diabolical delight in phoning me everyfew weeks at precisely the moment I am tucking in my children, peoplejust don’t call.
H. Armstrong Roberts/Getty Images

It’s at the point where when the phone does ring — and it’s not my mom,dad, husband or baby sitter — my first thought is: “What’s happened?What’s wrong?” My second thought is: “Isn’t it weird to just call likethat? Out of the blue? With no e-mailed warning?”

I don’t think it’s just me. Sure, teenagers gave up the phone call eonsago. But I’m a long way away from my teenage years, back when the keyrite of passage was getting a phone in your bedroom or (cue MollyRingwald gasp) a line of your own.

In the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up thetelephone — land line, mobile, voice mail and all. According to NielsenMedia, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward,with text spending expected to surpass it within three years.

“I literally never use the phone,” Jonathan Adler, the interiordesigner, told me. (Alas, by phone, but it had to be.) “Sometimes I callmy mother on the way to work because she’ll be happy to chitty chat.But I just can’t think of anyone else who’d want to talk to me.” Thenagain, he doesn’t want to be called, either. “I’ve learned not to press‘ignore’ on my cellphone because then people know that you’re there.”

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyoneafter 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone.Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticingsomething that millions of people have failed to notice since theinvention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a MissManners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve beenhammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rudepropensity to interrupt people.”

Though the beast has been somewhat tamed by voice mail and caller ID,the phone caller still insists, Ms. Martin explained, “that we shoulddrop whatever we’re doing and listen to me.”

Even at work, where people once managed to look busy by wearing aheadset or constantly parrying calls back and forth via a harriedassistant, the offices are silent. The reasons are multifold. Nobody hasassistants anymore to handle telecommunications. And in today’s nearlydoor-free workplaces, unless everyone is on the phone, calls aredisruptive and, in a tight warren of cubicles, distressingly public.Does anyone want to hear me detail to the dentist the havoc six-yearmolars have wreaked on my daughter?

“When I walk around the office, nobody is on the phone,” said JonathanBurnham, senior vice president and publisher at HarperCollins. Thenature of the rare business call has also changed. “Phone calls used tobe everything: serious, light, heavy, funny,” Mr. Burnham said. “But nowthey tend to be things that are very focused. And almost everyonee-mails first and asks, ‘Is it O.K. if I call?’ ”

Even in fields where workers of various stripes (publicists, agents,salespeople) traditionally conducted much of their business by phone,hoping to catch a coveted decision-maker off-guard or in a down moment,the phone stays on the hook. When Matthew Ballast, an executive directorfor publicity at Grand Central Publishing, began working in bookpublicity 12 years ago, he would go down his list of people to coldcall, then follow up two or three times, also by phone. “I remember fiveyears ago, I had a pad with a list of calls I had to return,” he said.Now, he talks by phone two or three times a day.

“You pretty much call people on the phone when you don’t understand their e-mail,” he said.

Phone call appointments have become common in the workplace. Withoutthem, there’s no guarantee your call will be returned. “Only people I’veruthlessly hounded call me back,” said Mary Roach, author of “Packingfor Mars.” Writers and others who work alone can find the silenceisolating. “But if I called my editor and agent every time I wanted tochat, I think they’d say, ‘Oh no, Mary Roach is calling again.’ So I’vepulled back, just like everyone else.”

Whereas people once received and made calls with friends on a regularbasis, we now coordinate such events via e-mail or text. When collegeroommates used to call (at least two reunions ago), I would welcometheir vaguely familiar voices. Now, were one of them to call on aTuesday evening, my first reaction would be alarm. Phone calls fromanyone other than immediate family tend to signal bad news.

Receiving calls on the cellphone can be a particular annoyance. First,there’s the assumption that you’re carrying the thing at all times. Forthose in homes with stairs, the cellphone siren can send a personscrambling up and down flights of steps in desperate pursuit. Having thecellphone in hand doesn’t necessarily lessen the burden. After all,someone might actually be using the phone: someone who is in the middle of scrolling through a Facebookphoto album. Someone who is playing Cut the Rope. Someone who is in theprocess of painstakingly touch-tapping an important e-mail.

For the most part, assiduous commenting on a friend’s Facebook updatesand periodically e-mailing promises to “catch up by phone soon”substitute for actual conversation. With friends who merit face time,arrangements are carried out via electronic transmission. “We doeverything by text and e-mail,” said Laurie David, a Hollywood producerand author. “It would be strange at this point to try figuring all thatout by phone.”

Of course, immediate family members still phone occasionally. “It’suseful for catching up on parenting issues with your ex-husband,” saidMs. David, who used to be married to Larry David, the star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” “Sometimes when you don’t want to type it all, it’s just easier to talk.”

But even sons, husbands and daughters don’t always want to chat. In ourtext-heavy world, mothers report yearning for the sound of their teenageand adult children’s voices. “I’m sort of missing the phone,” said LisaBirnbach, author of “True Prep” and mother of three teenagers. “It’swarmer and more honest.”

That said, her landline “has become a kind of vestigial part of my houselike the intercom buttons once used in my prewar building to contactthe ‘servants quarters.’ ” When the phone rings, 9 times out of 10, it’sher mother.

There are holdouts. Radhika Jones, an assistant managing editor at Timemagazine, still has a core group of friends she talks to by phone.“I’ve always been a big phone hound,” she said. “My parents can tell youabout the days before call waiting.” Yet even she has slipped into newhabits: Voice mails from her husband may not get listened to until endof day. Phone messages are returned by e-mail. “At least you’reresponding!”

But heaven forbid you actually have to listen — especially to voicemail. The standard “let the audience know this person is a loser” scenein movies where the forlorn heroine returns from a night of cat-sittingto an answering machine that bleats “you have no messages” would causeconfusion with contemporary viewers. Who doesn’t heave a huge sigh ofrelief to find there’s no voice mail? Is it worth punching in aprotracted series of codes and passwords to listen to somethree-hour-old voice say, “call me” when you could glance at caller IDand return the call — or better yet, e-mail back instead?

Many people don’t even know how their voice mail works. “I’ve lost that skill,” Ms. Birnbach said.

“I have no idea how to check it,” Ms. David admitted. “I can stay in ahotel for three days with that little red light blinking and neverlisten. I figure, if someone needs to reach me, they’ll e-mail.”

“I don’t check these messages often,” intoned a discouraging recordedvoice, urging callers to try e-mail. And this is the voice-mailrecording of Claude S. Fischer, author of a book on the history of thetelephone and more recently, “Still Connected: Family and Friends inAmerica Since 1970.”

“When the telephone first appeared, there were all kinds of etiquetteissues over whom to call and who should answer and how,” Dr. Fischer, asociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley,told me when finally reached by phone. Among the upper classes, forexample, it was thought that the butler should answer calls. For a longtime, inviting a person to dinner by telephone was beyond the pale;later, the rules softened and it was O.K. to call to ask someone tolunch.

Telephones were first sold exclusively for business purposes and onlylater as a kind of practical device for the home. Husbands could phonewives when traveling on business, and wives could order their groceriesdelivered. Almost immediately, however, people began using the telephonefor social interactions. “The phone companies tried to stop that forabout 30 years because it was considered improper usage,” Dr. Fischersaid.

We may be returning to the phone’s original intentions — and impact. “Ican tell you exactly the last time someone picked up the phone when Icalled,” Mary Roach said. “It was two months ago and I said: ‘Whoa! Youanswered your phone!’ It was a P.R. person. She said, ‘Yeah, I like toanswer the phone.’ ” Both were startled to be voice-to-voice withanother unknown, unseen human being.