For me: phones cut off an entire avenue of information (body language) and make it harder to know if someone is annoyed at you or when you should talk. Also I’m not a fan of talking to strangers, but it’s not as bad when they’re in front of me.

Those are known people, versus calling a stranger.

I get it. I used to have a lot of phone-related anxiety. I ended up practicing making calls a lot, and now I can call anyone.

I’d be more mad if my friend let me die because they couldn’t do CPR! All my friends have their first aid certification!

I love talking to people. I hate talking on phones, and that goes double for video calls.

My buddies and I used to have board game nights. When we inevitably ended up ordering food, people would start pitching in the money just so they didn’t have to call. (As in yes, the guy who made the call got to eat for free.)

On a call, I need to be constantly available and have that stupid mask of happy, springy person.

On text, I can chill out. Modulating text is easier and also I don’t really need to do this that much, because people can’t read tone hints in text anyway.

For me it’s not fear. It’s having to power up my “extrovert persona”. I’m happy to do it. I enjoy talking to people but it’s also exhausting.