Phone Phobia
I’m afraid of phones. It’s a very, very weird trait for someone as gadget happy as I am. I have a PDA, Cell phone, multiple computers, and I’m more tech savvy than about 98% of the population. Why is it I’m afraid of this relatively innocuous invention that’s over 100 years old?
Well, for starters, I’m not really afraid of the phone, but of what it does. I’m afraid to call people. It’s not a social, or a monetary inhibition, though those might play some part. On the contrary, I’m far more likely to hop in the car, drive 30+ miles, take 30-60 minutes out of my day, and knock on someone’s door rather than pick up the phone and call.
I think it might be traceable to my childhood. As the son of a radiologist, I vividly remember call weekends. We (my siblings and I) weren’t allowed on the phone except for dire emergencies, and if any of our friends chanced to call while my father was home, I was treated to the closest thing to a real life Jekyll/Hyde moment you can get. Suffice it to say that we treated the phone as though infected with plague, and warned all our friends not to call.
Another possibility may be social perception, and the advent of email. I have almost no problem composing an email message to someone. I can write when I have time, edit until I’m satisfied with the message, and finally send it without fear of interrupting or disturbing the recipient until they find an appropriate moment to reflect and respond. Contrast this with the telephone, which through social conditioning simply must be answered immediately, regardless of circumstance. Well, I suppose that the social imperative has lessened somewhat in recent years, but the basis is still there. What’s the first thing you think of when you hear a ringing phone? I’ll grant that phone conversation does have some inherent advantage over written text in the form of intonation, inflection, and other verbal queues while face-to-face contact has even more. Still, I think that my hyper-sensitive sense of propriety has driven from me the ability to use the phone.
For instance, when contemplating a phone call, I’ll often rationalize against calling early in the morning (before 10am) for fear of waking someone, nor can I call someone in the evening (after 8pm) for the same reason. I can’t call someone during my working hours without having a work-related excuse, nor can I call someone else during their working hours. Couple these general guidelines with the fact that it often takes me 30 minutes or more to simply commit to dialing the number as I contemplate all the various and sundry ways that I’ll interrupt my intended correspondent. If any one of the possibilities for intrusion or annoyance on the part of my recipient outweigh the potential benefits of my call, it usually gets postponed or cancelled out of hand.
Suffice it to say, I seldom talk on the phone. Most likely because I think way too much.