In 1988 I was working for Sky TV at its former HQ in London’s West End. One lunchtime my newly appointed boss (I went through several during my five years at the company…) went out for a haircut at a barber’s just a few doors down the road. Shortly after he left the phone on my desk phone rang: “Poulter!” he barked (Frenchifying my name to rhyme with ‘Voltaire’). “I’m out of cigarettes.” Resisting the temptation to ask what I could do about it, given that the barber was next door to a newsagent, I replied: “Where are you calling from?”. Him: “The barber’s. I’m using my new mobile phone.” It was one of those Motorola housebricks that was proliferating amongst Gordon Gekko types in the City, yelling “Sell, sell, SELL!” or “Buy, buy, BUY!” into them before the battery gave out (usually after a matter of minutes).
His call was probably the first time I’d received one from someone using a mobile, let alone from a two-minute walk away, and certainly for anything as clearly performative as simply to say they’d run out of fags. I tell this story purely to highlight the fact that, while the act of calling from a mobile was no less unexpected than if he had called me from a landline (and frequently did with much the same request), the ability to make calls from anywhere to anyone heralded an irreversible shift of etiquette.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the very first mobile phone call being made, although it would be the early 90s before mass adoption of handsets would take off. Today there are more mobile phones in use than there are people. An entire generation has grown up only knowing the smartphone, which now accounts for almost 90% of phones in use. However, with that generation, and the ubiquity of those devices, their use has also become a source of annoyance for many on a scale of irate never imaginable when I took that call from my boss in the barber’s chair 35 years ago.
Now, before I go further, I should declare a vested interest: I’m not against the mobile phone, not only being wedded to mine from wake-up alarm to last thing at night, but also having worked for the last 13 years in the telecommunications industry, both for companies who make mobile networks, and companies that provide services over them. I came into the industry from consumer electronics only three years after Apple had introduced its first iPhone, customarily taking something from someone else and making it better. This was still the 3G era, when being able to look up a web page on a handset was a rudimentary and sluggish experience. Then came 4G, bringing us something approaching mobile broadband (and with it video and audio streaming), before more recently 5G doing much the same thing, only theoretically faster. But the thing is, as these revolutions in information and social connectivity have taken place, the phone call - surely the primary reason for owning a phone in the first place, has started taking a back seat.
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| Picture: Apple |
This has prompted Debrett’s, the authority on all that’s good and proper, to highlight the clear generational divide between those under 40 and those over, and their attitudes to phone use. The younger you are, it suggests, the less likely you are to use a phone for conversing with people. If they do, it says, there is greater likelihood of decades of ‘telephone manner’, as it used to be called, being trashed.
Easily the primary peeve of any respectful individual who travels on public transport is the phone call (or FaceTime) conducted loudly without headphones, or even with headphones where the wearer has no idea just how annoyingly loud they are (ditto: conference call headsets in an office, but that’s another blog post entirely). Nothing seems to draw more ‘tssking’ and pass-agg glances in the direction of the callee than on a train, although the advent of in-flight WiFi and presents a new horror, as business types on planes, unable to switch off for a few hours, try to connect for Zoom while zooming in and out of satellite coverage at 38,000 feet. It’s all so redolent of Bob Mortimer’s brilliant Train Guy persona: “Ya, ya! Have a campachoochoo on me, ya! You are, as always, a vigorous pigeon. And of course, ciao and bella pommefritio”.
“If you’re making a video call in a public space (or if you’re just too lazy to hold the phone up to your ear) you must use headphones or earbuds,” Debrett’s instructs. “Nobody should be forced to listen to your phone conversation; it will be annoyingly distracting and might be intrusive or embarrassing. The person at the other end might object if they realise their conversation is audible to a train carriage full of unwilling eavesdroppers.” Hal-le-lu-jah.
Almost as annoying are those you know are using a speakerphone to multi-task, making the occasional “Yeah” or “OK” while they clack away at their keyboards. This, Debrett’s notes, is a recent phenomenon. “We carry our phones everywhere and think nothing of making calls when we’re on crowded transport, walking down noisy streets, doing the washing up, cooking the children’s tea,” it says. “Not only are these calls often annoyingly inaudible, it is also perfectly obvious that you are making them while doing something else. This can be very alienating for the recipient, who feels marginalised and deprioritised.”
Many of these traits have been adopted by younger mobile phone users, rather than older generations brought up to answer the phone, while standing to attention: “Whitehall 1212, how may I help you”. Indeed, such is the generational divide of these personal communication faux pas, that Debrett’s has now published its “ten commandments of mobile etiquette”.
First up is a rule which negates the notion that young people want to be called in the first place. An unexpected call, it says, is to be ignored (or feared) and sent to voicemail. According to Debrett’s Gen-Z is more likely to send texts, WhatsApp messages, voice notes and even e-mail rather than make calls, or even leave voicemail. “In general, people seem to be much happier using less direct methods. But we are still faced with a social conundrum: if everyone carries the means of communication in their pocket, why are they so elusive and unreachable?”. To this it points out that, in the pre-mobile era, to not answer the phone when it rang was to be “deeply eccentric”.
Thus, Debrett’s commands that before making a call a text should first be sent to enquire if the recipient is available to speak, surely the telephonic equivalent of the early days of the automobile when a lackey walked in front of one waving a red flag to broadcast its onset. “This preamble might seem cumbersome to traditional phone addicts who love nothing more than spontaneously picking up the phone,” says Debrett’s, “but it is considered a much less stressful way of initiating contact since it minimises intrusion and enables people to manage their own time.”
In further contravention of what made Alexander Graham Bell’s leg it down to the patent office, calls made out social intent aren’t meant to be answered. It is perfectly acceptable, Debrett’s says, for a call to be registered as “missed” and returned at a more convenient moment. Knowing how long it takes younger members of my family to even read, let alone reply to a WhatsApp, this piece of etiquette reduces telephony to the speed and efficiency of postal communications (and I’m talking here about horse-borne couriers in Elizabethan times). Beware, though, as repeated calls - leading to a string of “missed call” alerts - will only raise the recipient’s blood pressure. “Unless there is a real emergency - in which case it would be sensible to send a text - it is an unjustified intrusion, likely to alienate the recipient.” Should a voicemail be left (and if so, it’s “a matter of taste” for doing so), they should be kept brief.
Business calls, on the other hand, are “a different matter and are likely to be answered with much more willingness and alacrity”, while voicemail is “a matter of taste” but messages should be kept brief, if left at all. Debrett’s is not suggesting that phone calls shouldn’t be made, but it says that a call out of the blue can trigger an alarm: “People are more likely to react to them with panic or dread. If, for example, you see a call flashing up on your phone from your child’s school you instantly leap to the conclusion that there has been an accident”. Authority figures, such as doctors, should begin any phone call by reassuring the recipient that they are not about to die, although it also advises that while text messages are an acceptable way to congratulate someone, they should not be used to offer condolences. “There are some instances where the human voice must take priority,” Debrett’s says sagely. “Texts are an economical way of communicating but they are not good when it comes to nuance.”
Debrett’s Ten Commandments Of Phone Etiquette
- Text before calling
- If no answer, send a text
- Don't repeatedly call unless an an emergency
- Don't leave a voicemail
- Be aware people may find unsolicited calls alarming
- If someone says it's a bad time to talk, call back later
- Be tolerant of older people's habits
- Don't take calls in public spaces,
- If you do, use headphones
- If it's important or sending condolences, call
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