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'The death of the telephone call'

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Sep 26, 2016.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Why on earth is texting "heartless"?
     
  2. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    What I meant by that: you don't get the emotion, the extra meaning you learn from hearing someone's voice. Especially someone you know well, like family and friends.

    I know, we have our emoji :rolleyes: ... but not the same as hearing someone's voice.

    Granted, for many of the short and sweet texts which are exchanged, that doesn't matter. But for important conversations, texting is heartless.
     
  3. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    The Do Not Call list, um, Does Not Work.

    It's the one problem with phones themselves these days, even cell phones -- the fact that solicitors can call anytime, anywhere. It drives me crazy. As MC suggests, having/using a cell phone no longer seems to exempt you from solicitor calls, and having a landline is taken as an open invitation by them, no matter how many times you sign yourself up for the Do Not Call list.

    It's practically criminal how many solicitor/junk calls a day you'll get if you're on a landline. They start at 8 a.m. in the morning, and don't stop until after 9 p.m. at night. And if you get 'em from the crooks in Jamaica (Kingston, JM, anyone?), you could get them at 4:30 a.m. because the idiots don't know or care about time zones. Yeah, that happened to my mother about a year ago.

    Seriously, there should firm laws against solicitor phone calls. They're an invasion of privacy, and qualify as harassment as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't matter anymore if you tell them, twice, that you're not interested. They'll just call back again and you have to either listen to and ignore the ringing all day, or answer and make them think you actually want to talk to them.
     
  4. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Problem is, with cell phones, making calls does not work "perfectly well" anymore. Connections can be bad or drop. In my neighborhood, the reception in my house became bad. Got a cell thing to boost if. If I am on a call and walk a block or two it drops.

    So texting just became easier.
     
  5. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    I have had no luck with the Do Not Call list despite repeated efforts. Yes, I get a ton of telemarketer calls.
    Here's one after the phone rang at 8:30 a.m.:
    "Hello, I'm Joe Irritant from Joe Irritant Builders."
    "What time is it?"
    "Uh, 8:30 ..."
    "Too damn early for business calls."
    "The early bird gets the worm."
    "The early bird gets hung up on, fuck you, asshole."

    Recently, I got one. It was a real estate guy who was intelligent and spoke unbroken English. So I chatted a couple of minutes, then asked him how he got my number. He said he found a Multiple Listings Service entry for a house on my street, so he went to the phone book and did a computer search on the name of my street. He found my name, address and phone number.
    How do you get removed from the phone book??
     
  6. Dyno

    Dyno Well-Known Member

    I don't answer my phone if it's a number I don't recognize. It turns out that I am on the lam, because at least twice a week I get calls that the IRS has issued a warrant for my arrest and that the sheriff is on his way UNLESS I call back immediately. I get the calls both on my landline (yes, I'm a holdout) and on my cell.

    I keep hearing that the phone call is dead, and indeed, the vast, vast majority of my friends say they "hate talking on the phone." But it seems like people are constantly talking on the phone when I'm out. Walk down any street in my area, and most of the people are yakking away on the phone. A disturbing trend is the number of people who FaceTime while walking. A couple of weeks ago, I saw two people walk into traffic because they were FaceTiming and didn't notice the light had changed.

    I like and miss talking on the phone. No one (except my mom) wants to talk to me, though.
     
  7. swingline

    swingline Well-Known Member

    Texting replaces pillow talk.

    Her: OMG, that thing u did.
    Him: U like that?
    Her: O god yes.
    Him: I could do tht x 2 ...
    Her: Mmm ...
    Him: ?
    Her: Morning
    Him: OK. 'Night.
    Her: 'Night.
    Him: zzzzzzzzzz
    Her: Shit.
     
  8. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    If you like talking on the phone, you should get on the phone with those IRS scammers and convince them that you believe them and that you are hurrying down to the grocery store to send them the money via Wells Fargo.

    That would be fun to toy with them. Maybe confess that you didn't report your gambling debts and knew it would catch up to you etc. Beg them not to tell your wife.
     
  9. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    I saw someone streaming her grocery shopping on Facebook Live the other day. Like, the entire time she was in the supermarket, including the checkout line.
     
  10. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    If the person doesn't auto dial your number and doesn’t use a recorded voice, he can call your cellphone. True telemarketers can't call you, but a small business doing cold calls can.
     
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Do Not Call doesn't cover businesses that you have a prior relationship with, so if you've bought something or had a service before, they are still permitted to call.

    I've found, though that most legitimate businesses do obey the Do Not Call registry. Before I was on it, I'd get a dozen calls a day. The key word, though, is legitimate. I get a half dozen calls a day. By now, I should have a 0 percent credit card interest rate, my computer should be free of all viruses and the IRS should be happy with my tax return.

    The callers don't care about DNC because they're not calling from the U.S. and even if they were, they're trying to break the law by stealing from you anyways and no anti-call law is going to scare them.

    It is fun, though, to fuck around with them on occasion.
     
  12. Dyno

    Dyno Well-Known Member

    Did she narrate? Did she eat grapes before paying for them?
     
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