I’d say I’m hovering around the 60% mark.
I don’t answer calls from numbers I don’t recognise, unless it identifies someone I’m expecting a call from with the “maybe” thing. I don’t use my phone for work (often). I don’t call people to catch up, I’d rather IM. My mother or my best friend call and I ignore them more often than I probably should.
But really I just don’t like talking on the phone that much.
Personal: 0% unless it is a call with a planned time.
Work: 0% unless it is an in-house number of my organization. Communication can occur via email, please and thank you.
This is part of why I straight up do not trust most “reliable polls”, because tons of them are still conducted via phone, and in the era of constant spam and caller ID, most people younger than boomers just don’t answer unknown numbers, and also don’t even have, and in fact have never paid for, a landline. Not to mention, I still have a west coast area code, and I live on the east coast, and most of my friends have area codes from wherever they grew up, not where they live now, so targeting by area code is often nonsense.
Basically all of them.
A quick skim shows me that the only people who have called me this so far this year are:
- Doctor
- Dentist
- Sister
- Wife
- Close friend
I expect that this would be much the same for last year too.
I have no reason not to speak to any of these.
Must be nice not getting like 2-8 spam calls daily (no, that is not an exaggeration)
I’ve had the same number for 24 years now. I have only ever had a handful of spam calls in total over that time.
I probably get one a month or so on my work number.
I’ve found if you accidentally take a spam call it can be fun to string them along and waste their time for a good 30m if you’ve got time to kill, the humour is great but it also gets you blacklisted for a while and they stop calling
I answer calls from saved numbers and my local hospital and that’s about it. Otherwise you can leave a message and I’ll decide on getting back to you
My phone has been on silent permanently for the last 2 decades, so I miss 90% of calls. Only answer when it’s a known contact and I’m actively looking at my phone.
Family/close friends/doctors: 95% (I only don’t if I’m in the toilet, at the doctor, or etc).
Unknown/unsolicited: 0%. If it’s important, leave a message or fuck right off.
Nearly 98% of my calls come from that last group, though, so basically never.
I pick up every call I’m aware of. Scammers, phishers, polls, and everything else. I love messing with people, and good luck with getting accurate poll results, I have a dice rolling app I use to answer the questions.
It’s even on a schedule for me now. The ‘TV company’ scam calls around 5pm to try me out, polling places seem to be weekend exclusives, and rarely I’ll get a noonish jingle from some other random organization.
About 40% of the scam calls automatically disconnect after 8 seconds, and the rest I get to play with.
Careful some calls might just be to collect your voice data for cloning. They’d call, record, and use your voice for malicious purposes like asking your relatives for money
I don’t think my early 20’s radio host voice will be of much use to them.
Have you tried explaining in your native language that you don’t speak that language? They love it.
Not yet, but I can do that later.
3%. Mom, dad, and girlfriend. Anyone else nah.
100%. I don’t get any marketing or robocalls so it’s either family, someone from work, or someone from an appointment or delivery I have. At this point, I much rather speak with someone on the phone than sit around and text back and forth.
Maybe around half of them. I don’t answer calls if they’re from numbers that aren’t familiar to me, as they could very well be robocalls/scammers.
Close to 100%, I only don’t call back the numbers my phone automatically labels as spam/fraud.
All of them, but I’m also unemployed and looking for work. I can’t let me not answering my phone to be the reason I get passed over for a job. More often than not it’s a spam call but I can’t afford to let an opportunity for an interview go. It sucks, before this I would barely answer the phone for known contacts. If it can be said on the phone it can be said in text, in far fewer words too.
Pretty much never. Direct family only really.
Talking is for IRL, or actually urgent things. Everything else is a message or email.
Don’t ring me to discuss an email.
30%, my new mexico number gets a lot of spammers which just don’t get blocked.
Edit: I pretty much only pick up calls that I know or from a different state.
