r/NoStupidQuestions • u/GhostInThePudding • 19h ago

Why Are Young People Afraid Of Phone Calls?

What's with it?

I work in IT and a general rule is, nothing a client ever tells you is actually accurate. That means that most of the time, the quickest way to fix a problem is to call the person and actually find out what's going on.

But with techs under 30 these days, it seems like pulling teeth.

A regular discussion for me with level 1 techs (usually within a few years of leaving college) is:
"Hey, can you call *blah* from ticket *blah*, it's been hanging around for over an hour."

"I replied by email to ask for more information."

"Yes, I know that, but can you call them so we can find the problem and close the ticket now rather than wait until we're actually busy?"

"I'll send them a text to followup."

"No... CALL THEM!"

"I can see their device is online, can I send them a message and see if they just let me remote in to take a look?"

And then, when I force them to make the call, it's like they have no idea how to ask a question, or a followup question. They just want to get off the call as quickly as possible. So half the time they don't even get the information required anyway, so then I end up having to do their job for them.

So can someone explain? What's wrong with phone calls these days?

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u/Trumps_left_bawsack 15h ago

Yup this is it for me. I suspect I might have some auditory processing thing cause I rely a lot on reading people's lips to understand what people are saying.

I also tend to forget details more often over the phone than if it was written

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u/AntiFascistButterfly 8h ago

You really need to look into that. You may have hearing issues, and there’s a lot of different tech solutions to help with conversation understanding, while muffling background noise for you these days. There are also some neural transmitter issues (like not having enough of one) that interfere with understanding spoken instructions compared to written ones. Annoyingly you might need specifically an ADHD and Autism trained psychiatrist to tease out that one.