When you answer the phone, do you immediately say “hello” or offer some kind of greeting, or do you expect the other person to initiate a conversation?
If you are over 28 years old, I assume you are confused by this question. Of course you say “hello” when you answer the phone.
But Generation Z, raised in a post-linear world, may disagree. They expect you – the caller – to respond first.
A recent viral tweet brought attention to this one a disturbing difference in the label. A person working in the recruitment department wrote on Twitter that she noticed that when she calls Gen Z people (at a scheduled time), they often wait for her to speak first instead of saying “hello”.
The replies to her tweet were even more eye-opening — for me, anyway. Many young people agreed that this was the case the caller should be responsible for initiating the conversation and greeting the callernot the person answering the call.
The reasons these people give fall into two main camps. The first is the huge amount of spam calls we all receive. (They're annoying.) Often, telemarketers or robots don't start until they hear someone say “hello.” By remaining silent when you answer a call, you can check whether it is a real person.
Generation Z is distrustful of fraudsters
Spam calls are a plague and it's hard to complain about someone's tactics to avoid them. And yet… there has to be a better way, right?
(I must note here that in my experience as someone who almost always answers unknown calls as they may be work related, if I say “Katie on the phone” instead of “hhalo it seems that this blocks robocalling software that activates with the word “chhalo. I recommend everyone try this technique, but you will get better results if you use your own name instead of “Katie”).
Another concern is that Scammers can use your voice recording saying “hello” to clone them for use in other scams. There are real concerns here. Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN, told me there is little data on how often this happens, but it is real. “If you must respond, a neutral, non-personal greeting such as “Who's speaking?” can be appropriate less useful for cloningbecause it's less emotionally expressive and less common as a voice sample,” Briedis said. (I personally think it's ruder than breathing softly into the phone, but why not).
Telephone etiquette is changing
Another reason some people avoid saying “hello” seems to be generational difference in etiquette. Some young people simply believe that if you are the one calling, you should initiate the conversation.
If this makes your blood pressure start to rise, like it does for me, let's take a deep breath together and try to think about it kindly. Are young people hopelessly adrift in societywithout being capable of the most basic elements of communication? Could this be related to the so-called “Gen Z stare,” where young people in customer service situations stare blankly at you (or avoid eye contact, without saying a word)?
I'm not saying that's not the case. I think saying “hello” when answering the phone is normal, widely accepted social etiquette, and not doing so can be a bit confusing for the caller.
But just because something was once a common label doesn't mean it has to stay that way. The telephone is a relatively new invention in the history of human communication, much like the word “halo” that Thomas Edison encouraged as a way to start a conversation about a new invention in the 1870s. It wasn't until the 1940s that most American households had their own telephone. Within a generation or two, a whole new telephone etiquette was invented.
Landline phones had different habits
As an older millennial, I grew up with a home landline phone without caller ID, answering with variations of “Mr. and Mrs. Notopoulos' house, this is Katie.” I also had a job with landline phones where strangers called out of the blue and I answered with the name of the company, my name and surname, and maybe even a simple “How can I help you?” Could we miss the Beastie Boys album “Hello Nasty”if we weren't inspired by the way the receptionist at Nasty Little Man's PR firm answered the phone?
In my (relatively) short time as an adult, the way we use phones and what we do with them has changed dramatically. Now, when you call someone, you assume that you are calling directly to their personal cell phone, not to a shared family phone that other people can answer. Receiving messages from an answering machine used to be an art form; Now people rarely leave or check voicemails (I usually read the transcription in my iPhone's Visual Voicemail instead of actually listening to the recording). There is a new calculus that has us all still wondering what should be Zoom and what should be a regular phone call.
I often text or email someone several times to arrange a time for a five-minute phone call. When I call someone out of the blue, I apologize for it as if I had showed up on their doorstep unannounced at dinner time.
I like to be nostalgic about the old days of landlines, but that doesn't mean that any of the old ways were better. Progress is moving forward!
Just because the etiquette says “Hello?” when you answer the phone doesn't mean it has to be that way all the time. Phone technology has changed completely. Why wouldn't the rules change with her?
The above text is a translation from American edition of Business Insider
