The last few weeks have seen me make and answer a flurry of calls. A flurry in my case is about 10 calls in two weeks. My long-term average is closer to one call a week, either incoming or outgoing. I don’t even have the excuse of using a landline instead. I do still have a landline, but I only use it a few times a year now.
The unwanted calls I receive outnumber the calls I make or want to receive. Some call so frequently that I have entered them as “scammer” in the phone book. That way I know I can answer with an insult. Now, if only I could curse in Hindi.
Irony: The phone function is the function that gets used the least on my phone.
My peeps!
The phone function on my mobile phone has been intermittently failing for most of the last year, and it seems to have finally given up the ghost about three weeks ago. I’m getting more and more comfortable with the idea of simply never repairing it. I hate phone calls of all descriptions, and out of all phone calls, mobile phone calls with their tinny little sounds that can come at you at any time without warning are the worst. Well, short informative calls from people I know well with the sole purpose of organising things (like coffee! IN PERSON!) are liveable with, but that shit can easily go in a text.
On the other hand, the fact that I have a phone number does kind of delude people into thinking I have an actual functional phone, and I don’t like confusing people…
This is by no means an old-fogey renunciation of newfangled technology by the way. Texts are more modern than phones, and texts are great. Emails are more modern, and emails are awesome. I just don’t like voice-only comms, and never have. Gimme something to LOOK at, dammit!
+1
I’ve gone three months straight with no calls incoming or outgoing, not even texts. Usually it averages to about two calls per month, though. Texts can be more frequent, but only just.
I only have a cellphone because my living arrangements make it prudent. I’d happily still not have one if I could get away with it. I basically only use it as a glorified iPod. Aside from WiFi, it doesn’t even have internet on it.
I rarely get calls that I answer, preferring to deal with messages via text. Yesterday I had a looooong wait at the barbershop. During my wait, I recieved zero phone calls, but I recieved and replied to around 35 texts.
A few years ago, during a moment of boredom, I sent out a text to 40 or so people which read “WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?” I was no longer bored, dealing with the frantic replies. It became a meme amongst my friends.
What does that even mean?
History from 2017:
January: 0 outgoing calls, 2 incoming calls
February: 2 outgoing calls, 1 incoming call
March: 2 outgoing calls, 2 incoming calls
April: 1 outgoing call, 3 incoming calls
May: 2 outgoing calls, 2 incoming calls
June: 7 outgoing calls, 2 incoming calls
July: 1 outgoing call, 2 incoming calls
August: 0 outgoing calls, 0 incoming calls
Wow - impressive! I always love it when I identify an area in which I consider myself somewhat extreme, only to find out I am a rank amateur! 
So, for those of you who answered, do you have folk you communicate with somewhat regularly? For example, I got my first cellphone when my oldest went to college. We got a family plan so it was cheap, and the kids preferred texting. Now I have 2 kids living across the continent, tho when we speak with them, we use our landline so we can each use a handset, instead of relying on speakerphone.
So do you communicate with friends or family outside your immediate household? If so, via what media? Landline? Text? E-mail? Skype? Snail mail? Smoke signals?
Of the calls I listed, all but two were to/from my wife or children. The other two were to a friend but I don’t recall why I had a need to call her. Must have been something about her son’s whereabouts.
I send/receive texts somewhat more frequently but on the average day my phone is completely idle. I got the phone in 2011 (I was 43 at the time) because I was going to NYC by myself and my wife wanted to be able to reach me. If that hadn’t happened it would be quite possible that I would never have gotten a phone. I am almost always either at work (where I can be reached on a landline), at home, or away from home with my wife and/or kid(s).
Sorry, I meant my phone plan is not connected to the internet. All smart phones have WiFi but I can only use my own in my home (no need, I have a PC) or the free stuff out in the wild (spotty, unreliable, I usually don’t bother). Basically, when I’m away from home I have no connectivity, which I value.
I have no land line, cell only. I make and receive 5 calls a month on average.
Mrs Bitchin’ gets/makes quite a few…but it’s all doctors and insurance etc.
Before meeting a fellow Doper last weekend the last actual phone call I got was back in April; since January 1 I have gotten exactly 7 and made 6. My cell phone is for emergencies on the road and most people know that.