TELEPHOBIA

A college in England is offering a seminar designed to help Gen Z students overcome their fear of telephone calls. Apparently, Gen Z – those currently between the ages of 13 and 28 – is suffering from phone anxiety, so Nottingham College is offering courses to teach the lost art of a phone call. Liz Baxter, a career advisor at Nottingham College, notes that Gen Zers “automatically default to texting, voice notes, and anything except actually using a telephone for its original intended purpose, and so they have lost that skill. They associate the ringing phone with fear.” The course involves practicing a series of scenarios where you have to make a phone call, for example, calling the doctor to make an appointment, or calling in sick to work. The seminar course also teaches breathing exercises, similar to what women do during labor, in case an incoming call makes someone feel anxious or overwhelmed.
* For the course final, you have to answer a robocall about your car’s extended warranty and physically hang up on them.
* If the course doesn’t work, you can get your money back, but you have to call to do it.
* Oh, come on, people! A phone call is just like having a Zoom meeting, but without the picture.
* You don’t need a college course. I just searched Youtube and there’s a gazillion telephone tutorials. One, called “The Fear of Making Phone Calls,” has 697 thousand views. I don’t know if that’s good … or sad.
* PHONE TOPIC: Is your kid a phone-a-phobic? Do they ever use the phone for talking?