Telephobia

Telephobia is the reluctance or fear of making or taking telephone calls, literally, "fear of the telephone". Telephone phobia is also considered to be a type of social phobia or social anxiety problem. Is it an offshoot of glossophobia (fear of public speaking)?

I bring this up, because there are many in my family who have varying degrees of this (Is there a spectrum?), especially when it comes to making phone calls. They simple will not make or return phone calls. Some will also sit and watch (or listen) to the phone ring and make no attempt to answer it.

This may be because of where technology has taken us, with texting, tweeting, etc., and with the invent of caller ID (some of us just choose to ignore the incoming call when we see who it is). It may also be complicated with the over use of robocalls and getting stuck in the never ending automated answering gauntlets prevalent in today's business world.

This phobia gets in the way of scheduling events, or appointments, returning phone calls and following up on what is needed. This leads to a denying, not receiving, and/or getting important useful services.

I know people that have cellphone break downs of their usages, and it will have 6 or 7 minutes of talk time and 5,000-6,000 texts per month. For a society that has become collectively obsessed with our cellphones and social media, this is just weird in my opinion. Yet there are those that join social media sites and then fret over their privacy settings, just a different kind of social anxiety I guess.

If you have any questions call me.