Phone calls also assume the person on the other end wants to be bothered. If you choose to not answer, you're treated like the a-hole and are expected to explain why ("I've been trying to call you. Why haven't you picked up?")

To quote Stephen Fry:

"A telephone is a fantastically rude thing. I mean, it's like going 'speak to me now! Speak to me now! Speak to me now!'. If you went to someone's office and banged on their desk and said, 'I will make a noise until you speak to me' it would be considered unbelievably rude."

Shortly after getting a cell phone, I made a personal policy that most people don't get a free pass to interrupt my life whenever they want (there are a handful of people on the short list, of course). I've had friends and family comment that I'm hard to contact by phone, and I've always pleasantly agreed (and explained politely if they seem interested). Even texts or other messages can wait until I'm at a good place to respond.

For me, having my phone on silent most of the time is a mental health thing. I know people that have their attention diverted every few minutes, and I have no idea how they survive.

For me an email is when I don't need a quick response. A text is when I want a faster response but I don't want to interrupt what the other person is doing. A call is when I want a quick response and I think it's worth interrupting the person.

I very rarely call.

I think context makes a difference on whether a call is welcome or not, appropriate or not.

If the email asks me to write out a bunch of info I know off the top of my head, just call me. Don't make me write out something that I can just tell you much faster.

If you're asking something that kicks off a conversation going back and forth like if you need help walking through something, sending emails back and forth is annoying and dumb. Knocking it out in one call is faster and easier than exchanging 15 emails.

On the other hand, if you don't need an answer right away, if you need documents or images or if you need to communicate about something that requires a record of the communication, email is better.

I have been annoyed equally by getting calls and emails when people use them for things when they aren't ideal.

For me it would help if there would be an option for me to see the at least the reason why the call is being made and also an estimated time of the call.

And with work related calls, it kind of makes me insecure to not know the topic beforehand. I don't want to blob out some half information. Write it in email, I'll see for it and get back to you.

Generally I get work emails to tell me things and work phone calls to ask me things. One twenty minute conference call could equate to about 800 emails going back and forth. (Also, some of our best staff don’t read and write (English) too well.

I greatly prefer messaging, but sometimes I call because it'll take me 5 minutes to talk on the phone and 25 minutes to get it all hashed out through texts.

Phone etiquette for the 2020s:

Message:

Hi, I wanted to talk about X. I think it’ll take about 5-10 minutes. When would be a convenient time to call?

Phone calls themselves don’t annoy me. People who expect to call you at any time and then get upset you won’t drop what you’re doing to speak to them annoy me.

Calling is faster

My work gave everyone digital desk phones. The calls come through the computer.

I still barely ever get calls, and the Voicemail go to my email.

I remember a very rude university lecturer called me once when I was in Tesco. He told me to turn off the Tesco self checkout because of background noise. I was in the middle of buying my groceries. Wut.

I’m so glad that spam calls aren’t a thing where I live yet. SMS spam is a relatively new phenomenon here.

EDIT: I completely skipped over the point of the post. If you’re busy, or you don’t want to be called, can’t you just decline the call?