I HATE THE TELEPHONE!
I know I'm not alone in this. It is a characteristic of many people on the introverted side of the bell curve. When I see people sauntering down the sidewalk yakking on the phone, or driving down the interstate doing the same, I'm almost baffled by this. I would actually find it more understandable to see a person lick road kill off of the road, as that has about on the same level of revulsion as chit-chat on the phone.
Maybe that is a slight exaggeration; there are times at work where a 5 minute conversation can take the place of awful email chains or long-winded instant messages. But that is often just making up for incompetence. The only thing that is worse than a phone call is a conference call as it amplifies the negatives of telephone conversation. The awkward pauses. The repeated attempts for multiple people to start talking at once. The reality of the best interrupter being the most prominent, sometimes only, voice on the phone.
Part of my distaste for phone conversations is that it does not allow for thinking before speaking, and the world already has entirely too much talking without thinking. The phone takes away facial and body cues that are so important to real communication. Video telephony somehow makes this worse, not better. I think this is because there is still latency in the speech, and the video and audio are always slightly asynchronous.
Even worse than the phone conversation is talking to a fucking computer on the phone. I understand the automated call menus. Humans are expensive and automating the route to (hopefully) the right place makes sense. I'm not sure why I have to answer the same questions if I do finally end up with a human on the other end of the phone, yet I'll accept that. But ... and this is a big But ... while I'm perfectly happy to interact with the computer on the other end by pressing touch-tone buttons, my skin crawls when I must speak to the computer on the other end. It is creepy. It is dehumanizing in an Orwellian way. It is A Brave New World's baby in a jar. If I could find a way, I would get these automated systems to talk to each other in an endless loop so as not to be subjected to them. One of the reasons I was exceedingly happy to dump DirecTV was that the only way to get help that was not available online was by starting the phone call talking to a DirecTV computer; there was no button pushing option. Please, just give me the road kill to lick.
If the promise of artificial intelligence is heading in the direction of more speaking to computers, sign me up for a shack in the middle of nowhere in Montana. Some time ago I was in a casino and saw one of those automated and full-body animated blackjack systems. I watched it for a few minutes as the Barbie-esque cartoon character stood there forlornly with no one to deal to. Her come-hither look and repetitive animated gestures promised the dystopian future that was imagined by every 1980s action movie. We have arrived and the Terminator is a here - she is conquering the world, apparently gamblers first.
I recognize some people hate email, but at least it allows for thought before communicating. Once I de-emoticonned my life, I realized the few extra minutes it takes to write clearly and succinctly is time well spent.
Text messages and Instant Messaging are great for informal conversations or short information.
But at some point the reality will have to be addressed, when did all these supposed advances in communication technology begin to take away what they tried to deliver?
No comments:
Post a Comment