Because human brains aren’t supposed to be able to do emotional and mental parkour like completely redirecting our focus on a new topic in under a second without prior warning.
For me personally, if it’s a call I expect, it drops the anxiety levels by considerable amount. Even better, if I can prepare a plan/scenario for the call, and take notes during it.
Of course, if it’s someone from my close family or friends, that also helps. But unexpected calls from unknown numbers (or known, but from like work or distant acquaintances) freak me out.
Because human brains aren’t supposed to be able to do emotional and mental parkour like completely redirecting our focus on a new topic in under a second without prior warning.
Evolution, last time I checked, selects for stuff that a species regularly does on a very long timescale. We have not had telephones invented for long enough for them to be relevant to the way our brain evolved
For what it’s worth, we haven’t had doors much longer relative to how long our brains have been evolving. The time between doors and telephones is a hiccup in comparison.
For me, I think it’s the fact that I have to prepare for both a social interaction and a monologue depending on whether they answer or not. As someone with mild social anxiety, the uncertainty and the fact that I am unequivocally initiating the interaction messes with a lot of the ways I would cope with joining a normal social interaction and throws me off my game
I got a lot better at phone calls when I worked on trauma therapy. I’ve always had issues asserting myself and phone calls are sort of a form of saying “hey!! Quit what you’re doing and pay attention to me because I have something important!” which isn’t something I was used to doing or asking for nor did I even think anything I did was important
I haven’t pieced out why yet but I have recently realized that phone calls are a huge anxiety trigger for me.
Because human brains aren’t supposed to be able to do emotional and mental parkour like completely redirecting our focus on a new topic in under a second without prior warning.
For me personally, if it’s a call I expect, it drops the anxiety levels by considerable amount. Even better, if I can prepare a plan/scenario for the call, and take notes during it.
Of course, if it’s someone from my close family or friends, that also helps. But unexpected calls from unknown numbers (or known, but from like work or distant acquaintances) freak me out.
I can handle phonecalls from friends and family. Anyone else I just won’t pick up. Screw you buddy.
Incoming calls I can handle. But me calling somewhere? Hell naw!
citation needed lol
Evolution, last time I checked, selects for stuff that a species regularly does on a very long timescale. We have not had telephones invented for long enough for them to be relevant to the way our brain evolved
For what it’s worth, we haven’t had doors much longer relative to how long our brains have been evolving. The time between doors and telephones is a hiccup in comparison.
Doors don’t require much brain power to operate, though
For me, I think it’s the fact that I have to prepare for both a social interaction and a monologue depending on whether they answer or not. As someone with mild social anxiety, the uncertainty and the fact that I am unequivocally initiating the interaction messes with a lot of the ways I would cope with joining a normal social interaction and throws me off my game
I got a lot better at phone calls when I worked on trauma therapy. I’ve always had issues asserting myself and phone calls are sort of a form of saying “hey!! Quit what you’re doing and pay attention to me because I have something important!” which isn’t something I was used to doing or asking for nor did I even think anything I did was important
It’s gotten much better for me as I’ve aged, I really don’t think about it now.