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There was a time when a ringing telephone meant something. Someone wanted you. The phone rang in the kitchen and everybody heard it. If you were a teenager, you might sprint 100 miles an hour from another room to get there before your mother did. There was no caller ID. No advance warning. You picked it up and took your chances. "Hello?" It might be your grandmother. It might be your best friend. It might be someone asking your father to buy aluminum siding. But you answered. It was actually exciting when the phone rang.
Today, my phone rings and I stare at it as if it's a suspicious package someone left on the porch. Who is this? Why are they calling me? What do they want? If I don't recognize the number, there is almost no chance I'm answering. Apparently, I'm not alone. Americans have developed a remarkable new relationship with the telephone: We own one, carry it everywhere, sleep beside it, spend hours looking at it--and refuse to answer it. This seems like an important moment in technological history.
The people who ruined the telephone know who they are. They're the extended-warranty people. The Medicare people. The solar-panel people. The people who are deeply concerned about my credit-card interest rate. The people who have detected suspicious activity on an account I don't have. Somewhere there is apparently a giant room full of people desperate to help me with things I never asked for.
Then there are the calls that begin with an ominous announcement: "This is an important message regarding your account." Which account? They never say. For all I know, it could be my account at the library. And despite years of federal do-not-call lists, spam blockers and various promises that technology will save us from technology, the calls keep coming.
The irony is that our phones have become incredibly sophisticated while their original purpose has become almost unusable. My phone can recognize my face. It can tell me how many steps I took yesterday. It can translate Italian, identify a flower, show me a satellite image of my house and give me directions to a bakery in Prague. But apparently it cannot stop someone in a boiler room from calling me 11 times about a loan.
The worst part is that legitimate callers are now caught in the mess. The doctor's office calls. Ignored. The plumber calls. Ignored. Then comes the voicemail: "Hi, we've been trying to reach you..." Yes, I know. But so has everyone else. We have essentially created a communications system in which people must contact us to tell us they would like to contact us.
My daughters text before calling. "Can you talk?" This is apparently proper telephone etiquette now. You must first obtain permission, in writing, to use the telephone as a telephone. I actually understand it. An unexpected call now feels strangely intrusive. Twenty years ago, nobody thought this way. The phone rang because that was what phones did. Now, if someone calls without warning, I immediately wonder what happened. Who died? What's wrong? Why didn't you text?
And then there are the repeat offenders. A number from Ohio calls at 10:14. It calls again at 11:32. Then another Ohio number calls at 1:05. I don't know anyone in Ohio who needs me this badly. Blocking numbers is almost comical because another one simply appears. It's like trying to empty Lake Erie with a teaspoon.
Even worse is "spoofing," where callers disguise their number to make it look local. Apparently, they think I'll see my own area code and think, "Well, surely this is someone from around here with my best interests at heart." Nice try. Sometimes they even use a number nearly identical to mine, which raises an interesting question: Why would I be calling myself?
What's even more astonishing is the size of the industry behind all of this. My husband recently came across a report about how enormous scam operations have become in some countries--large enough to represent serious economic activity, with entire compounds and thousands of workers devoted to separating people, many of them Americans, from their money. Think about that for a moment. The annoying call you dismiss while making lunch may not be some lone character sitting at a desk dialing numbers. Behind it can be an organized operation with employees, supervisors, scripts, technology and quotas. There are places where scamming has become an industry.
And Americans are particularly attractive targets because, collectively, we have money, credit cards, retirement accounts and a lifelong habit of answering the telephone. Or at least we used to.
The telephone was invented to allow human beings to talk to one another across great distances. It was miraculous. For generations, a ringing phone meant connection. Now it means somebody would like to discuss my car warranty, which is particularly annoying. I don't even have the car anymore.