Phone phobia

Status

2008-03-09: I've created a "social network" on ning.com for Phone-Phobia discussion: http://telephobia.ning.com/ -- please feel free to join! It's for sufferers and supporters. --Woozle 12:12, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

Overview

Phone-phobia (alternate keywords: phonephobia, telephobia), is a psychological condition in which one experiences extreme fear or avoidance of using the telephone. The fear may be more intense with regard to either making or receiving phone calls; in the latter case, it can intensify to the point where the phone-phobic is afraid even to listen to voice-mail (answering machine) messages.

Based on the anecdotes below, the causes of phone-phobia appear to vary somewhat although there do seem to be some recurring patterns, including:

• fear of confrontation (why are you calling me?)
• fear of ridicule (why do I want to talk to you?)
• fear of miscommunication:
  • fear of being misunderstood
  • fear of misunderstanding
  • fear of forgetting what you wanted to convey
  • fear of forgetting what you were told while on the phone
• fear of irreversibly prejudging someone based on their voice alone:
  • fear of hearing the voice of someone you have not yet met but plan to meet in the future for fear of disliking the quality of their voice and inappropriately prejudging the person out of context
  • is this kind of like where you have that pre-judged opinion stuck in your head and can't get rid of it even after you meet the person? Please feel free to describe in more detail on the discussion page. -W.

Practical obstacles which can contribute to avoidance of making calls:

• You can't do part of a phone call now and then finish it later. (Interruptions sometimes make it necessary to do things in more than one part. Also, sometimes you get part way into a communication and realize you are lacking key information, or are going about it the wrong way, leading to...)
• You can't start a phone call over again if you realize (partway through) that you started out wrong.
• A successful phone call requires calling at the same time the other person is available to take the call (unless they have voicemail... but the mental preparation required to have a phone conversation is not the same as the mental preparation required for leaving a message, and there is usually no way to know in advance which it will be).
• Phone calls often require talking to several different people first, and waiting on hold, before you get to the person you actually want to speak with. This is annoying and time-consuming.

Other causes suggested by posters on this page:

• (cell phones only) fear of cell phones causing cancer. Although scientific studies have not shown a correlation, there are reasons not to trust these results completely; also, fear also does not necessarily operate on a rational basis, even if the connection were completely disproven by trusted parties.
• (anonymous user 58.168.243.72 said:) fear of someone hearing your voice on the other line or hearing your own voice. Can make you uncomfortable. (Woozle adds: can you describe this in more detail? Is it only on the phone?)
• (anonymous user 172.203.105.119 said:) It Can Also Be Scary Talking To Someone That You Can't See
• anonymous user 65.199.97.126 suggested that one of the causes of phone-phobia might be "becoming a first year financial advisor". I'm not sure what is meant by this, so if the poster would be so good as to explain further... is a first year financial advisor subject to a lot of really unpleasant phone calls?
• (anonymous user 72.73.109.138 said:) Fear of calling and reaching the wrong person, fear of calling said person at an inconvenient time and being a bother or making the recipient mad at you.
• (anonymous user 122.106.57.24 said:) Fear of lull in conversation and not being present to make a distraction.

Fear of running out of things to say, or not knowing what to say.

Fear of stuttering.

Related Wiki Pages

• phone phobia at HTYP

Opinions

Woozle 15:58, 4 May 2005 (CDT)

My own experience has varied between these extremes; sometimes I can listen to messages, but it gets harder if I know I am behind on my work because I am afraid that the message will be reminding me of something I haven't done.

It is a problem which I have had almost as long as I can remember. I believe it is largely rooted in having a very poor short-term memory, which means that I easily forget things I am told verbally -- to the point where I will find myself completely at a loss as to what to say next in a conversation, or even whether it is my turn, or if the conversation is now over or not. In face-to-face conversations, I can often read nonverbal cues to help guide me, but these cues are almost entirely lacking in phone conversations. If the conversation were taking place in print (e.g. email or instant messaging), I could re-read what had taken place so far until it sank in, and then work out what to do; with the phone, there is no instant replay, and there is an expectation that you need to respond within a small time-window.

This problem has also been very costly to me -- not just because of missed opportunities because I couldn't make a phone call, but also because of problems dealing with people who agreed to handle phone calls for me.

Although this problem is not, as far as I know, recognized by any official psychological association, I have lost count of the number of people I have spoken with who have more or less the same problem. Some others have said that they have experienced this problem but "got over it"; after 35 years of trying to "get over it", by various means, I do not think the forceful approach works very well. (I have more to write about this, but will have to come back to it later.)

I've been trying to think of possible sources for the aversion. Here's what I've come up with:

[ 2005-05-22 18:48 (CDT) ] I ask a question. The person on the other end says something, but it doesn't soak in -- I don't hear it, to oversimplify a bit. It can actually be physically painful (leading to intense migraine headaches) to make myself replay the sounds in my head and listen to them more carefully, or else to ask the person to repeat what they said and force my head into a mode where I can take in the information at the speed at which it is given.

[ 2006-04-18 09:32 (EDT) ] The person on the other end says something friendly, though off-topic. If I'm in the right mood, I might be able to (a) successfully process what they said and (b) reply in kind – but if I'm not, it takes me too long (i.e. the length of the necessary pause passes the "comfort zone" and goes into the area of awkwardness if one person or the other doesn't say something) to work both of these things out, and I'm forced to either (1) ignore the diversion, (2) explicitly say something to "get back on track", (3) somehow stall for time so I can think (and try to think while doing so), or else (4) go for a very general reply in the same tone (i.e. shoot without aiming). #1 and #2 have the very unwanted effect of conveying to the other party that I prefer to be "strictly business" and possibly stand on formality. #3 sometimes works, but can be very frustrating (and leading to feelings of inadequacy) when it fails. #4 also sometimes works, but often misfires (with much the same upshot as #3).

[ 2007-07-17 some additional thoughts ] During the dialogue, I feel intense pressure to say [the next thing], whatever that happens to be (and not waste the other person's time, I guess) – but if [the next thing] doesn't happen to come easily into my head, then there's an intense spike of almost-pain until I either figure it out, or find some acceptable way to temporize.

If the dialog goes "off-script", I can usually handle it ok – but the extra resulting almost-pain spikes are kind of exhausting, not to mention discouraging of further calling activity. (It may well be these "spikes" which are at the root of the aversion.)

Harena 16:11, 4 May 2005 (CDT)

I have had great difficulty pinning down just what it is that makes it so hard to make phone calls. "Fear" is what comes to mind at first. But Fear of What? Well, there's the whole, "What if the person who I'm calling has no clue who this is that is calling?" and then I have to go into lengthy explanations that make me sound idiotic. Or something. And then there is this trapped feeling. When on the phone, I can't escape. Also I can't see what the person on the other line is doing; how they are reacting to what I say. Little cues like that make me feel detached & awkward.

And maybe it's just All of the Above.

Just my humble 2 cents worth.

(there's more in there *taps on forehead* but that's all that came out at this time)

Mechamancer 15:23, 24 May 2005 (CDT)

I also have this fear. I keep having to ask people to repeat things because of the bad reception. And as said before the lack of visual clues is disturbing. I also hate the awkward silances that you get. And I always have problems starting and ending conversations. I like to pick up a thread of a conversation not start one. Plus you never know who you will talk to when you call someone. I can never rcognise peoples voices.

clappy 12:12, 25 July 2005 (AST)

Wow Woozle, you just pegged me exactly. I have spent the last 6 years working at callcenters and the like. In that time period, I have taken over 90,000 phone calls, generally lasting 6-10 minutes each. I used to hate talking on the phone because I could never recognize someone's voice, having to ask them every time. After taking that many phonecalls, I technically have the experience to take control of any telephone conversation, and yet I avoid the phone like the plague in my personal life.

I always get a sinking feeling when the phone rings. Often I won't answer it, or I'll wait until my roommate answers it instead. I also have self esteem/rejection issues that usually stop me from calling people. I wait until I am contacted so I am certain the person does want to be in my company. Thanks for sharing your stories.

SpazBomB 05:58, 16 Feb 2007 (CDT)

I am totally stunned to find I am not alone. I've had many of the symptoms shared here for over 10 years now and have been unable to call it a real phobia until now. I've even had problems convincing anyone including my family that this was actually something serious. My problem occurs when calling anyone other than a business, its an overpowering fear that the person on the other side does not want to talk to me or despises me for calling, which is reinforced by the same awkward phone issues that have been pegged down here.

At my worst I have had anxiety attacks, nausea, trembles, and sweat before being forced to make an important call that could not be resolved by a face to face talk. I am not as bad now, I spent some time outside of the US working in a situation where phone calls were a matter of work and survival, though I still have to rehearse and motivate myself a good 15 minutes prior.

I know where my phobia originated though. Back in the day before caller ID and wireless phones I had a childhood friend who would call me nearly three to five times a day and would sit on the line. I began to despise picking up the phone and wasting so much time being tied to one spot, I even began to despise him and other friends who would call. I stopped answering the phone and my parents did not want to deal with it so I became malicious leading to a series of answering machine fights with this kid. Now I am terrified that others feel the same way I do when I call them.

====SpazBomB Update 21 Feb 2009====

Its been two years since I originally posted here and I have actually met and married another person suffering from Phone phobia as well. We've talked about it a lot and share similar feelings that facial expressions and body language are important to our understanding of a conversation and contribute to our fear of telephone conversations. I'm learning to live with it but it doesnt go away. I still ignore calls from friends half the time and it can take my wife and I a good while to decide on who will make an unavoidable call. I've been forced by my job to deal with calls daily(though I take less calls than any other employee if I can help it), and while the fear doesnt go away my reaction to that fear has been getting better, less anxiety, less sweating, less prep time needed.

Woozle comments

Wow, that's interesting – especially that you can remember specifically how it started. Thinking about it, I can remember a specific incident in preschool where they had me call a bank to ask a question about currency, for my daily journal entry. What I can't remember is whether this was an attempt to break me of an existing phone-phobia, whether they were trying to break me of an existing social phobia (which was almost certainly in evidence by then) or whether they had no real idea that it would be especially hard for me.

I can also remember my dad being particularly angry about people calling at dinner-time (this was also in the day before answering machines, when not answering one's phone was considered rude and possibly dangerous – 1970s), and I remember being afraid to call other people for fear that they would be angry for similar reasons (regardless of the time of day... but how do I know what times of day they might be busy with stuff like that? Not that I take that reasoning seriously anymore, but it matches the pattern of yours – an aversion with a known cause that doesn't go away (or even gets worse) after the cause disappears.

--Woozle 21:13, 16 February 2007 (EST)

P.S. I'm lately thinking that a lot of it has to do with organizational/communicative issues I have – I often have trouble coming up with answers to relatively simple questions (in voice-realtime, anyway; in email or even IM/IRC it's not a problem because there's much less demand to keep the flow of conversation going), and I'm afraid (with justification) that this will happen in the middle of a phone call. I also know that when I do break down and actually make a vitally important call, I often feel awful for hours afterwards, even if the call went well. I'm wondering if any of these symptoms sound familiar to anyone else. -W.

User:Jenny 20 March 2007 (CDT)

I have a similar thing - its funny but it used to be exactly how you guys describe it above - the fear of ringing someone in case they dont want to talk to you but get trapped on the phone out of politeness - and there you are blabbing away oblivious to the negative response. But now i am not so scared of that - not because it doesnt cross my mind - but because i just dont care about how people react quite so much anymore. Thats not to say i really dont care about them or their feelings but just that i have come to realise that you cant go through life being fearful of what other people think of you - there is not all that much you can do about that. You can only be a nice person - making a phone call really isnt a crime anyone should hold against you and if they do then they are not all that worth knowing in the first place.

Despite this new found revelation on friendship - which has made using the phone easier for me - my phone phobia still hasnt disappeared. Oh no. Its just there in another form. I can ring people for specific reasons, either at work or friends with only a tiny bit of nervousness which then dissapears, but actually answering the phone to then transfer it to someone esle is giving me real trouble. I have specifically avoided having any secretarial like role in my career - but i find that i have now been asked to answer the phone despite the fact its not really my job - and i just cant do it. The fear of answering the phone, taking someones name, transfering it correctly, taking all necessary details, without asking them the same question about three times and transfering them to the wrong person - while still concentrating on my own work just seems impossible to me. I have been asked to do this before and i am rubbish at it and ultimately embarrass and ridicule myself at work. But this whole inability to answer the phone is more embarrassing anyway so im just trapped in a completely awful situation.

comment

[anonymous user 68.56.129.144 said:] hi jenny! i hope i'm doing this right as i've never used this site before. i just wanted to say that i have almost an identical story. i used to be deathly afraid of phones, but now i have reached a point where i can communicate with friends. granted, i still prefer texting, but i CAN pick up the phone...so that is definitely an improvement!

HOWEVER, the work scenario has not changed for me. i recently took a job in retail and shudder inside every time the phone rings. only ONCE have i actually picked it up (oh, my poor coworkers...), and when i did, i started shaking and sweating profusely. i ultimately told the customer to...get this...google his question!

oh, this phone phobia. i wish i knew of a way to overcome it. :(

Ivan --- from Chile

posted Tuesday 27 March 2007 21:37

This is very interesting since ive developed a true discuss to phone RINGINGs, i actually hate to answer the phone, and most of the times i dont- Ive actually configured my cell phone to just ring one tone at the lower volume, so i can call afterwards if i HAVE to but at the same time im able (if silent enough) to notice the call, and ive modified my home telephone putting a led light in the ringing circuit, so i can SEE the call with the bell almost off... just a lower cracking sound (i modified the speaker on the phone to be that low, but i still can turn it up if i want to). But where's the phobia: the ringing sound started bothering me while driving, (since you shouldnt answer it) i tried to overcome the sound for a while after such i just began to put it off... but beacuse of my work i CANT do that all time--- and it was then when my home phone started threatening me, the fact of ANSWERING it was a slavery, and the feeling grew with time. I know this is actually the "other" end of what's being discussed here, but its still related and its giving me hard time to overcome the numerous electronic alarms everywere... Think about it--- Microwaves, clock alarms, MSN, elevators, wrist watches, electronic tone alarms of any kind are a true slavery, but we dont notice them... what if we start noticing them, developing as a phobia... Im about with phones, i dont want to feel menaced with all of them.

Woozle comments

Just a quick thought: is it possible that you have hyperacusis? It doesn't sound like hyperacusis would explain the whole problem, but it might be a contributing factor. --Woozle 06:58, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Amber from Michigan:

My problem is different than yours. Mine is that I fear who will pick up, or who is on the line. With caller ID I'm usually okay but when I have to call someone else I'm especially anxious because I have no way of knowing who will pick up. This is because I think my mom used to always call me and bitch me out which made me try to avoid adverse conversations on the phone and eventually the phone all together.

Woozle comments

Actually, that rings a bell for me. See my earlier comment under SpazBomB's entry about how my dad always used to yell and gripe about people who called during dinnertime -- so I was always afraid of calling someone "at the wrong time", because who knows when they might be eating dinner (different people have different mealtimes) or doing something else which they might be annoyed to have interrupted.

This obviously only applies to calling non-business numbers, but actually a lot of the phone calls I had to make early in adulthood were (a) calling customers to provide tech support, and (b) trying to find a place to live in Providence, where many rental units were owned & operated by families (you would often end up talking to the elderly Italian grandmother who was barely understandable). So this particular fact might have played a large part in shaping my early aversion. --Woozle 20:24, 24 July 2007 (EDT)

Corinne from MA:

My problem sounds similar to the symptoms described, but then very different from what many commenters are describing...What you all are describing sounds more like social anxiety disorder than a phobia. I have a literal fear just of using the phone, and calling anybody (even a friend) sends me into panics for no reason at all. I have no specific fear of angering the person or anything of the sort, I'm just terrified of talking to somebody on the phone. I only make one or two phonecalls a year because of this, and discourage other people to call me, even to the point of lieing...after a phone call I have something like a panic attack where I hyperventilate and can't think or sit still for several long moments. There is no rational reason whatsoever behind my reaction to using the phone...Just thought I would share my story, I'm not sure if it's just another sort of the same thing or not.

Woozle replies

Whether it's the same basic thing or not, your story is certainly relevant. Do you have any guesses as to what might be at the heart of your phobia? For example, are you afraid of telephones in general, even if they're not being used? Do you find yourself fearful when other people use phones in your presence? How do you feel about intercoms (e.g. at a fast-food drive-through), PA systems, walky-talkies? Looking at all the different ways people use to communicate (especially via speech, and especially where you can't see the other person), and observing your reactions to each one, might help you to figure out what it is about the phone that is frightening. A reason doesn't have to be rational for it to be a reason. ;-) --Woozle 15:15, 4 March 2008 (EST)

Nicole:

I recently found this page because I'm a teenage girl, and I've always been "afraid" of phones. It used to be to the point that if I had to make a phone call, I would start crying and refuse to make it. Now, I say more that I "dislike" phones, but I still will find every excuse not to MAKE phone calls. If someone else is making the phone call, it's easy to let them lead the conversation, avoiding awkward silences. However, if I make the phone call, I'm expected to lead the conversation. That's why I don't make random phone calls "just to say hi", unless I have something important to say. I can make phone calls with a bit of coaxing. My mother thinks this isn't normal for a teenage girl to not want to talk on the phone. She wants to get me a counselor.

Woozle replies

We have a teenage female friend who doesn't like babysitting -- but of course everyone assumes that all teenage girls like taking care of kids, so she's always getting invited to do it. People make assumptions, and it can be very annoying if you happen to not fit those assumptions -- but it certainly doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

So it's true that it isn't "normal" for a teenage girl not to want to talk on the phone, but not everyone is "normal" in all the possible ways of being normal, and there's nothing wrong with that. (People who are too normal are usually boring, anyway. (-; )

Speaking from experience, though, not being able to use the phone when you need to is going to be a problem -- but I don't know if it's something to be "fixed"; the solution which has always worked best for me was to simply avoid (as much as possible) getting into situations involving phone usage. Don't take a job doing telemarketing, for example, or being a receptionist, if you can't picture yourself handling those kinds of calls.

Putting pressure on myself to make more calls always seemed to make the problem worse for me. too, so that's probably not a good solution -- but other people will still say that "you just need to make yourself do it". It never worked for me, and other phone-phobics have reported that it doesn't work for them either.

A good therapist should be able to help, however -- help you work out ways to avoid calling, if nothing else, and perhaps help you figure out what's happening that's causing the aversion. I have yet to run into a therapist who really seems to "get" the problem (but I also haven't ever gone to a therapist specifically to deal with phone-phobia), so you may have to "educate" the therapist a little bit -- but that's part of why I created this page, and also the site over on Ning (telephobia.ning.com). Please feel free to print out any of the postings here or on Ning which seem appropriate, and show them to the therapist, and that may at least help convince him/her that you're not inventing this problem from thin air.

Mind you, therapy's not for everyone, but it can be useful if you feel able to deal with it.

Hope that's helpful, and please feel free to post again, either here or on Ning :-) --Woozle 21:00, 24 January 2009 (UTC)