I saw a meme this morning suggesting that if someone was annoyed at all the unwanted phone calls they were getting, the solution was to get rid of their landline.
Just another snark at people supposedly too old or unhip to have a cellphone.
It isn’t even true anymore.
Once was the time when one of the wonderful benefits of using a cellphone for your telephonic needs was that the only people who knew your number were people who got your number from you.
There was no telephone book of people’s cellphone numbers.
On the other hand, if you had what used to be called a home phone, your phone number was published for everyone to see — unless you paid extra each year to have an unlisted number.
So-called telemarketing calls became such an annoyance that the government created a “no call list,” but even then you had to request to be put on the list. And there were all sorts of exceptions to it.
Nearly all the calls either wanted to sell you something or get you to donate something.
In the 1955 play “Inherit the Wind,” a drama about the Scope Monkey Trial of the 1920s, the Clarence Darrow character spoke of the mixed blessing of progress.
“… progress has never been a bargain. You’ve got to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man behind a counter who says, ‘All right, you can have a telephone, but you’ll have to give up privacy, the charm of distance.'”
For all the good that came along with the telephone, for all the improved communication, people had to give up a lot of privacy. You could post a sign on your front door saying “NO SOLICITORS,” but with the telephone they are through your door and inside your house.
I have both a landline and a cellphone, and 80-90 percent of the calls on the landline are either charities wanting donations or people wanting to sell me something I don’t want or need.
At least one of those callers tries me three times a day.
Which of course brings us to the real problem with these calls.
They’re no longer made by people.
Oh, there are still people in the equation, but the only time a real person comes into play is if you answer the call. Up to that point, it’s a computer dialing the number and making the call. If you don’t answer, it disconnects and goes on to the next number in a long long list.
If you do accept the call, you usually have to say “Hello” two or three times before someone responds.
Hey, it’s a long way from here to Mumbai or Bangalore.
At any rate, it used to be that cellphones were fairly free from annoying, useless calls.
Not anymore.
Very recently — for me just the last few days — I have started getting all sorts of calls on my iPhone 13. I don’t answer them, of course, but yesterday I got at least two dozen calls, all labeled Spam Risk and all from different small cities around the United States.
I figured out how to block calls, but all it does is block calls from the specific number that just called me. It’s a lot like playing Whack-a-Mole. Knock one down and another one pops up.
So I looked to see if there were apps that might block that kind of calls. I found one called Active Armor and installed it. It isn’t blocking everything, but I’ve only had three calls so far today and that’s definitely progress.
I’ve actually reached a point in my life that if I don’t know who’s calling, I no longer answer the phone. Think about it. If 80-90 percent of your calls are people you don’t know or don’t like, why bother? Especially if the people you would want to reach can send you a text message or leave a voice mail.
The fact is, I never had much use for Spam.
Even the kind you eat.