There’s a common perception that Gen Z members would do anything to avoid answering a phone call, one which is supported by several recent surveys. Take for example a 2023 Sky Mobile survey that found that more than a quarter (26 per cent) of people within the Gen Z age group (16-24 years old) actively ignore phone calls.
But it’s more complicated than that. For many, there exists a love-hate relationship with phone calls. And for some, like Cathal Eustace (22), a old-fashioned telephone call is a treat.
Eustace says part of a phone call’s enduring appeal, for him, comes from the sense of “meeting each other on an equal playing field that doesn’t always really happen with texts and with voice notes”.
With this mode of communication “you both know just how invested in it you are” and “the quality of the interaction is so much better”.
“If you call somebody you kind of demand their attention,” Eustace says of what he considers to be “the most effective way to contact people”.
Although making and taking phone calls are now second nature to the 22-year-old, this hasn’t always been the case.
“I haven’t always liked being on the phone, I used to find it very uncomfortable ... It stopped when I came to college and obviously we had to deal with Covid and so I wasn’t able to go home as much as I wanted.”
Growing up surrounded by people who are fond of the telephone has been a definite advantage, potentially setting Eustace apart from some of his “shy” peers. “I suppose I developed the habit, just because of my parents who are big phone callers and it’s the same thing that they use to get my attention.”
“I have some shy friends who hate it when I call them, but still always pick up. They don’t like phone calls at all.”
The impact of pandemic-induced lockdowns, which took place during a hugely formative time for Gen Z (born between 1998 and 2012), cannot be underestimated. For some, this has made phone calls and other social interactions more challenging, but Eustace says it had a positive impact on his relationship with his phone.
“I think I want to spend the least amount of time typing on my phone and scrolling through things as possible ever since Covid, ever since being stuck in my room for weeks on end with not much to do but surf the internet,” he says.
Eustace says he is not a fan of voice notes, which have been dubbed as Gen Z’s curated alternative to the phone call: “I hate them.”
“Having to leave a room and say ‘Oh I’ve got to go take this phone call' sounds much better and feels much better than having to leave a room to say ‘Oh I’ve got to go put on my headphones to listen to a voice note'. It feels kind of rude, in the same way that I feel kind of rude texting on my phone in front of other people.”
[ Is Gen Z the most cynically manipulated generation in history?Opens in new window ]
Video calls don’t sit well with Eustace either – “there’s something eerie about them”- a feeling he attributes to “the amount of video calls we had to do during Covid”.
Ellen McKimm (23) is of a similar mind, favouring phone calls over texting, at least when it comes to casual conversations. “I think there’s a certain joy to getting a random call from a friend or a loved one,” she says.
“There’s something special about a conversation over the phone and I feel like our generation has kind of stopped doing that which makes me sad ... I think they’re like a lost art in a way. They’re being slowly phased out.”
Despite considering herself “a big fan of phone calls”, McKimm says “it does depend on the context of the call”.
“I’m a bit of a chatterbox so I feel like calling has always been pretty natural to me but I feel like it does depend on the context of the call. If it’s a work related thing where I don’t know the number I’ll definitely be more anxious to answer or sometimes I’ll wait to see what the voicemail is before I answer the call.”
Liz Baxter, a careers adviser at Nottingham College in England, recently started running coaching sessions to help support Gen Z students in overcoming their apprehension about making phone calls.
[ Gen Z will become the propulsive force that drives Irish societyOpens in new window ]
“What we’ve noticed is that when it comes to telephone interviews ... they induce unparalleled levels of fear within our students ... For them, a ringing telephone immediately sets them into alarm mode and they see it as a hostile thing.”
So how does it work? “We give them a safe space, we give them a script where they would have to make maybe one of six scenarios. So they use this script, they sit back to back, one’s the caller ones the receiver so they can’t see each other and they just need to concentrate on managing the ebb and flow of a conversation.”
Baxter says the coaching sessions, which began last December. are already taking effect. “It’s the mindset that’s the most transformative part of it, the shift in perspective.”
“To be fair, how are they supposed to be able to develop those skills when there are much more limited opportunities to have telephone conversations? It’s not their fault,” she says.
Although McKimm says unplanned calls are intimidating – “when you’re going in blind or you haven’t got a text before or a random teams call, it’ll be a little more unsettling as to why the people calling you” – this anxiety is usually outweighed by the positives.
“It gets to the point pretty fast and you’re not beating around the bush. If you need an answer now I feel like phone calls are always preferable ... You also get a good sense of the tone or the urgency of a task.”
Elise Carney Frazier (23), who also comes from the older bracket of Gen Z thinks that the death of the landline might be partially to blame for younger members' telephobia.
“I remember as a kid being really proud of answering the phone well. You know if someone called your house and you answered and were like ‘Hi it’s Lesy here, can I take a message for my mum or dad'. You’d know what to do. Whereas now, I feel like my younger cousins or younger people I know probably wouldn’t know how to answer the phone in that way or wouldn’t have that kind of lingo.”
Like Eustace, growing up with family who “would be more oriented towards phone calls” has helped build Carney Frazier’s confidence with this mode of communication. “It doesn’t stress me out ... My mum calls her siblings two or three times a day and they just talk on the phone and chew the fat. It can be about nothing. I definitely come from a household of calling people.”
Being more comfortable than most on the phone, she sometimes finds herself being employed by friends who struggle with it. “I had some friends in secondary school who would get me to call the GP and book an appointment for them.”
For Carney Frazier, phone calls eliminate the ambiguity that sometimes comes with a text. “I’ve been worried so many times where a friend texts me and I could misunderstand what’s up.”
“I prefer them [phone calls] to texting or FaceTime. It feels longer and you can express yourself more. If I’m in a rush I feel like it gets to the point faster ... It’s good to be able to talk out into the void. It’s good to have those skills.”
Méabh Mackin (23) says that having access to a smartphone is most likely why she, like many other members of Gen Z, find making a traditional telephone call “scary”.
“I can do it but it is scary ... I think there was a time before where ringing people was a lot more normalised like we still had a house phone. When I was nine or 10 I would ring my friend on the house phone if I wanted to arrange something. When it got into getting a phone of your own or social media, you didn’t have to do it so much so it became more alien.”
Katie Trowbridge, chief executive Curiosity2CREATE, an American non-profit which works with high schoolteachers on “integrating interactive creative thinking approaches into their classrooms”, says that Covid has a lot to answer for.
“When I talk to a lot of Gen Zers, there’s a couple of things that have happened. One is Covid, it has trained a lot of that generation that we can stay inside and we’re in our comfort zone and we’re in our safe place.”
“I keep hearing it’s scary,” says Trowbridge, “That there’s this fear of failure and this fear of being judged.
“There is this idea that making a phone call is much more intimate ... I can hide behind a screen; I can hide behind texting. I can ignore it if I want to; I can stop and think about what I want to say and how I want to respond.”
Mackin believes that the best way for her to face this fear is by “realising that it’s not that deep. The person on the other end of the phone isn’t going to bite your head off”.
“Figuring out what it is about the thing that you’re asking that makes you feel anxious is probably important. It’s usually not the phone call ... and thinking about how you can help that instead,” she says.
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