#telephonophobia

[jimkirkachu]

the inexplicable fear, panic, and paralysis of having to make phone calls

(gif source)

[m-a-d-e-l-e-i-n-e]

Just made two phone calls in a row without procrastinating it and overthinking the shit out of exactly what to say. Might go fight God or something next idk

[inhumanliquid]

I'm scared of everything to do with socialization & humanity, pregnancy, medical needles, hospitals, thunder & lightening, nightmares (which I don't even have), and clowns. That's a heck of a lot, so you'd expect horror games to actually scare me since they're basically simulations of nightmares. They don't because I have emotional blunting caused by alexithymia. How the fuck does that even work?

-Someone who has a bunch of phobias but who also experiences very little emotion

[cannondisabledcharacters]

Today’s disabled character of the day is Dorothy Williams (Dot) from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, who has telephonophobia

Requested by Anon

[Image Description: Photo of Ashleigh Cunnings playing Dot. She is wearing a fabric sun hat, purple long sleeve jacket, and a pink blouse. She appears to be standing outside.]

[fireboltsystem]

(Prev reblog) OH MY GOD AND TELEPHONE CALLS. DUH. CANNOT MAKE A PHONE CALL WITHOUT CRYING.

[noahhasbeensummoned]

FACT OF THE DAY

Telephonophobia is the fear of telephones

Huh. Yknow- that's the only phobia name ive heard that actually makes sense!

[frogs-robots-and-wizardry]

Fact of the Day 29.7.22 A UK study suggests that 40% of baby boomers and 70% of millenials experience telephone anxiety ranging up to telephonophobia (the fear of making or taking phone calls).

[le-souriant]

#MusicMonday Review - January 2024

#MusicMonday is the hashtag I've been using for quite a while to share music recommendations from up-and-coming artists. Always fresh, and always different, trying to look for trends before they become one. You can check December's review for more music.

Welcome to 2024. We begin this year with an all-English multi-genre round up, with just a taste of current Mexican Pop. Give it a listen, with a word from the artists themselves. 🎧

VIANA – LOCA

Esto apenas va empezar Ya me cansé de qué me inyecten su veneno Muchos sólo hablan pocos somos los que hacemos La voz que llevo dentro afónica ha de estar Hago como que no escucho y no para de gritar

Oye, despierta, date cuenta, ellos no te verán capaz A fin de cuentas, no te mientas, eso tú sabías ya

Ellos intentan, poco a poco, tu ánimo aplastar Mientras más traten, ya ganaste Eso no olvides jamás

The year starts with a bang, straight from Torreón, Mexico. A sincere Latin Pop track about having a dream, and fighting for it, despite what other people might think:

"I started writing this song some time ago, when I had several opinions regarding my decision as to pursuing a singing career. I was, in a way, mad that people doubted I could be able to do so.

LOCA is my response to the criticism, showing them exactly that I'm not crazy for fighting for my dream. And if they thought I would give up, they couldn't be more wrong, since I have a ton of music to share and be heard."

Viduals – Where Did the Time Go?

Caught between forever and after You and me erased, erased, erased

We fly now to Swindon, England, for an Alternative Rock song that takes us to the process of a couple falling to nothing, with many excuses to make:

"The song came about as an exploration into relationships. The track initially started as a bit of a break up song, we wrote the track when we were around 18/19 so it's an older one.

It kinds became less relevant over time so it went through a few iterations. The track evolved over time and now I'd say it charts the whole course of a relationship.

The first verse is the beginning of the relationship where things are hopeful, the second verse things are more shaky, the bridge represents the parting/break up and the outro is the acceptance of this. The track isn't really about anyone in particular it’s more about the theme itself."

Candid Faces – Telephonophobia

You better run, fear leaking out of your pores You better hide, never distant from a buzz or a chime You better run, better lock up all of your doors You better hide, I think they’re slipping into our minds

Let's travel north to Kingston upon Hull, in Yorkshire, for some Post Punk bliss about those silicone spies that reside in our pockets, as band member Joe explains:

"The song started with [band members] Taro and Ben writing the riff and I thought it would suit the song to write lyrics with a lot of nervous energy to them.

The main thing I wanted to write about was privacy in the digital age, I feel like there's a lot of weird aspects to how we interact with technology, as in how companies seem to primarily make the consumer the product through selling their data. I think at the time there was a lot of controversy around Facebook/Meta and data privacy which probably inspired me more than anything.

It was fun working on this EP because it feels like we all had something to offer each track which I think you can really hear on this!!".

Matt Edible & the Obtuse Angels – Mirror Shoes

Look at me I'm vitamin C A picture of health Ain't nothin' but stealth In my Mirror Shoes

I'm a man of the people I'm the best of The Beatles I'm crack cocaine I'm Citizen Kane I'm True Romance I'm The Modern Dance In my Mirror Shoes

We stay in Hull, for a Glam Rock track that will make you put on your suit, head into work, act like a hero, and may end up a jerk:

"A few years ago my partner bought me a shiny pair of platform shoes for Christmas. I loved them so much I declared I'm gonna write a song about these!

The song kind of wrote itself.

It's kind of about the duality of being a rock star that has to do a normal job everyday to pay the bills. It's also about the good and bad in everyone - though some may be better or worse than others..."

The Flitz – Night On My Mind

Right time, wrong decision Feel like going fishing 🐟 New day, do the same thing Get paid, gonna waste it on you What else can I do? Cos you gotta get around in this dead end town

Don't know what you're living for You just want more Sick of everyone who's waiting at the door Everything's gonna be working out in time Into shoetown, night on my mind

We end up our trip in West London, for an Indie Pop song about how a night out in town can be saved by some good ol' rock n roll:

"On the train to my hometown (Northampton) I always saw this massive wall graffiti on the tracks of Euston, platform 6. That's where I got the title from and the lyric “into shoe town, Night On My Mind”. Northampton is historically famous for making shoes, hence shoe town".

#MusicMonday 2023

We say goodbye to 2023 with this year's compilation. 101 titles from original artists covering all types of genres, representing the multiple trends independent artists are proud to establish. Have a listen:

Get into 2024, and much more, on the complete Playlist:

[codebreaker-0]

FACT OF THE DAY

Telephonophobia is the fear of telephones

OOO!!! L1KE THE RING/1NG THIGNZ?>??!?

[rageagainstthesink]

What's the ring around an angel's head?

(see the joke)

Dear reader,

I need you to be honest with me here.

Do phone calls make you feel fearful or nervous at all?

In my case, they do. Call it telephonophobia if you'd like, but whether they're outbound or inbound calls, just no.

Luckily, incoming calls are an extremely rare occurrence in my daily life, other than my carefully planned work meetings, and I don't really have the need to call anyone, either. Thank the Lord for social media and SMS, setting aside the negatives.

It's not that bad of a fear, though. I'm okay with phone calls from friends and a few family members every now and then, but not as much with unknown numbers. It's the not being able to predict what they'll say that drives me mad, I guess.

Which is ironic, because I worked in customer service and dispatching for a year, nonetheless.

Back in those days, this is what waking up every morning felt like (knowing that I had a full-time shift ahead):

So I don't really regret leaving that life behind. In the slightest.

While it did make me feel much better to be able to rehearse what I'd say before a call and to have a vague idea of its possible outcomes, that didn't make the job any more enjoyable for people like me.

Coming up with something worthwhile to say in under a week is already a big challenge for me, let alone in less than a second. My brain's CPU must not have enough capacity for that type of task, leaving me drained after a whole day of trying.

Surprisingly, there was a time in which I was making a great effort to overcome my fear of talking back in 2018. I was doing it out of spite, actually.

You see, a convenience store owner mocked my mom because I was terrified of calling over a newspaper carrier that was passing by once. I got so angry at him that I decided I wouldn't let my shyness get in my way too much ever again.

I went all-in, running all kinds of errands for my family with seeming confidence, plus this one instance of having the ovaries to order a super personal thin crispy ham pizza over the phone and get the delivery myself. And, yes, that's how I could've ordered it in just one short sentence instead of going through 3 questions, had I checked their website before dialing.

Jumping to late 2021, as the adrenaline from my newfound outgoing and social self started to wear off, I ended up landing my very first job as a call center agent the day I finished my first year of college.

I dropped out of college as soon as I got hired, because Accounting and my family weren't any more tolerable than angry customers, and up to this day I admire that Naomi's courage in getting emancipated at the same time she was trying to overcome these telephonophobia-ish issues.

It was an okay experience. I was assigned to a tech support position where we worked with restaurant managers mostly, and needed to study the product to know how to troubleshoot it, meaning customers saw us in a very different light from that of telecommunications or retail agents.

We also dealt with way less daily customers, because calls lasted anywhere from 1 minute to 6 hours, and my department in particular had up to 1+ hour of no calls coming through (a.k.a "waiting") sometimes.

The work ambience was overall good from my perspective as a newbie. So much, that I missed it every day once I got promoted and relocated to another, delivery-related, more peculiar client.

That one I hated thanks to my boss, plus the distance between my house and the office didn't help, either. Still, I preferred it a hundred times over "going back to the phones".

The dread I felt every time I heard that little beep-y song before an incoming call was very, very real.

Anyway.

Fast forward to the time I was 4 months into my second job as a dispatcher for a garage company. I hated it.

The workload was considerably lighter in comparison to my previous roles, and I was thrilled about working from home, but I just couldn't take the morning dread any more, as their customers were often angry and I wasn't trained enough for it, and quit.

Had I not done that, I wouldn't have found the closest there is to my dream job in this industry just a month and a job abandonment later. So, I'm the living proof that you also need to know when to give up and give into your intuition.

I'd be ecstatic if we, as a society, finally accepted that this would be the world if we transitioned from call-based customer support to a chat-based, or at least 50-50 one:

I don't care how many articles and corporate training modules out there insist on how vital phone calls are, no human being loves being yelled at by some psycho who thinks they're entitled to venting over the phone in such a rude manner with someone who's not even at fault for their problem.

But, of course, it's much easier to talk about the importance of leaving a good impression on even the most annoying of your clients as a super rich CEO who hasn't met any of their customer support agents, let alone said clients.

I do get the part of wanting to have a business-client connection, the human touch and what not, but I feel like there are many situations where we can avoid the whole phone call thing for a more convenient, less intrusive chat experience.

Let's take BAC Credomatic (bank) and PedidosYa (delivery services), to demonstrate.

They both have functional apps from which you can get stuff done anywhere, anytime along with efficient chat-based customer support lines that allow you to get most issues fixed immediately or have your requests submitted over a quick 1-5 minute chat.

As their customer, I feel extremely satisfied in that regard. Then again, I've had few inconvenciences with their services in the first place...

Sadly, since barely anyone enjoys being a phone agent and chatting is still in the process of gaining popularity in the customer service industry, the so-called "backend" positions that encompass messaging and emailing tend to be used as incentives instead of an actual position you can apply to from the start.

Kinda sucks to be an introvert or have any type of social anxiety as both a customer with a big problem at hand and a customer service representative, y'know?

I'm not completely against phone calls now that I don't have to experience a constant fear of dealing with an angry person at some point throughout the day, but still believe that chat is my personal strong suit.

It has a few noteworthy advantages over calls such as:

The fastness in being able to individually tackle more than one chat at a time.

The comfort of being able to think your answer through for a bit before sending it.

You could have a dog barking next to your phone and it wouldn't affect the conversation… if you don't want it to.

The fact messaging using Meta apps doesn't pull out as much mobile data as the calls do.

Of course, one disadvantage is it doesn't necessarily ensure a real time conversation. And funnily, that's an advantage, too! It means you don't really need to wake up at midnight to talk with someone at the other side of the planet. Also, while it feels comforting to hear a nice human voice, it's just as possible to lie or be lied to during a phone call as it is when texting someone.

At this point, the overall safest communication method would be video calls if it wasn't possible to use filters or fake them in any other way altogether.

Technology's scary, isn't it?

That's why, if I were to provide sensitive information, I wouldn't be capable of ignoring who could be lurking behind these screens. Would much rather do delicate stuff at a reputable branch of whatever business I'm trusting it with than one that can't even have that decency.

This leads me to the question, are there cases where calls are better than chatting or writing? Absolutely, even I'd be willing to call someone I haven't seen in months.

But the fact that everyone, including blind and handless people, can choose between calling and chatting is a beautiful thing.

Our real peak as humanity is precisely this ability to have preferences of ours, no matter who we are.

And by now you probably figured out mine is texting.

You'll just never ever catch me choosing to call someone instead of sending them a message as part of my daily activities.

What about you? Do you prefer writing your thoughts, or talking them?

Until next time!

- N

[parkerbombshell]

The British are Coming #642

The British are Coming Tuesdays 10:00pm -11:30 pm EST bombshellradio.com Repeats Wednesdays 8:00am - 10:00am EST Matt plays 20 of the best up-and-coming indie, alternative, and rock artists in the UK, some of which you know, but many more that will be new music discoveries. Matt’s deep knowledge of UK music scene and his ear for a banger make The British are Coming a must-listen on Bombshell Radio. #TheBritishAreComing, #Alternative, #Indie, #Rock, #NewMusic, #BombshellRadio Matt Dalzell @britdjmatt New Dad - Nightmares Manatees - Get What You Want Viddy - Fool For A Fun Night The Goa Express - It's Never Been Better Lime Garden - I Want To Be You KLDD - Star Crossed Utopiates - Love Pill Home Counties - Wild Guess Velourias - A Forest Of Lungs Candid Faces - Telephonophobia Skanger - Talk To Yourself Still Blue - I Hope It's You  The Amniotics - HMPB Marika Hackman - Slime The Great Leslie - Liquid Spells DannyWright - Not Dead Yet Femegades - Toolish Soda Blonde - Boys Sabatta - To Love Me Is To Know Me Wolf Club Lunar Society - Sing It Again Castlecombe Drive - Blue Skies                                 Read the full article

[phobias-zine]

Welcome back to Phobia of the Week!

☎️This week’s phobia is Telephonophobia, the fear of telephones.

This phobia can range from the thought of answering calls to the actual ringing produced by phones.

Do you have any unique interpretations of this phobia? Feel free to reply to this post with your ideas!

Last week’s phobia

Our Twitter • Our Instagram

[cannondisabledcharacters]

Today’s disabled character of the day is Cleo from Tori and Samuel, who has telephonophobia and a stutter

Requested by Anon

[Image Description: Drawing of a light grey rabbit with black eyes. A white speech bubble is coming from her mouth.]

[mirandamoonmagick]

Telephonophobia

Starting YouTube has made me so much more comfortable with talking. I’ve always had social anxiety, and as a child, selective mutism (which did go away). But one thing I never thought I would be able to do was talk on the phone to people I didn’t know. Without anxiety I mean. There’s so many people who struggle with this, but it’s just not talked about enough.

Well I did today, it was an unexpected call from someone I barely knew about a problem in the local feral colony I work with. I answered with no anxiety, didn’t even think about it, and talked to her a solid 10 minutes. I hung up like “wtf.” But Ik it was starting YouTube that helped me do this. I never would have thought, but I’m so happy no matter what comes of my channel, that I’m able to have accomplished this.

The Universe works in crazy ways, man. This is really personal but I felt the need to open up. Even if only one of you are suffering with this, it does get better!

[theblogplacetobe]

There are various conditions that we aren't aware of. Always show empathy to others before you complain or irrationally insist for something. #menatlhealth #telephonophobia #emotionalwellness #emotionalwellbeing #theblogthought #theblogplacetobe #thinkact https://www.instagram.com/p/CL1FCw3H_Qq/?igshid=3cwdbmx4pznk

[le-souriant]

Listen to it and much more on the #MusicMonday playlist.

@osornios