The Matt Walsh Show - January 27, 2024


Is Gen Z's Aversion To Phone Calls Justified？ [Weekly Walsh Original]

Topics
making phone calls and social anxiety phones
Hosted by
Matt Walsh
Mentioned
Gen Z Download Hallow Aaron McGovern Mark Wahlberg Mike Schmitz Jim Caviezel
Ep. 1302 - Democrats Hold A Funeral For DEI Ep. 1303 - Representative Ilhan Omar Must Be Expelled From Congress And Deported

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

196.12

Word count

2,338

Sentence count

154

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Gen Z speaks out on the simple act that brings them to tears, and the fun clickbait game we re supposed to play is to guess which simple everyday activity brings these young adults to tears. And it s sort of a trick question because literally any simple everyday task has that potential, but in this case the activity is making a phone call.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Well, it's going to seem like this is shaping up to be another segment where I rip on Gen Z, but it's not.
00:00:05.280 Well, at first it will be, but then, but not for the whole time.
00:00:08.400 And that's the best I can do.
00:00:09.700 So we begin with this article from New York Post, headline,
00:00:11.720 Gen Z speaks out on the simple act that brings them to tears. 0.97
00:00:15.040 I would freak out.
00:00:16.400 And the fun clickbait game we're supposed to play is to guess which simple everyday activity brings these young adults to tears.
00:00:22.980 And it's sort of a trick question, though, because literally any simple everyday activity has that potential.
00:00:30.000 But in this case, the activity is making a phone call.
00:00:33.600 So reading, the simple act of making a phone call has emerged as one of Gen Z's greatest weaknesses. 0.99
00:00:39.740 With phones being so easily accessible and attached to almost every young person's hand,
00:00:44.160 you might expect Gen Z to be able to perform one of the most mundane tasks, picking up the phone and dialing. 1.00
00:00:49.260 Unfortunately, the reality is the very thought of making a call is often accompanied by a sense of dread and impending failure for some.
00:00:55.140 Most subject matter experts believe this apprehension to phone calls is associated with social anxiety.
00:01:00.800 Social anxiety stems from the fear of judgment or humiliation.
00:01:04.320 Texting and using apps such as Snapchat prevents mistakes from being made.
00:01:08.280 Texting allows Gen Z to proofread and keep track of their conversation. 0.86
00:01:12.980 Now, hang on one second.
00:01:14.220 If anyone of any generation is proofreading their text messages,
00:01:18.620 or any other message that they post or send on the internet, that's definitely news to me.
00:01:22.660 Because Gen Z very clearly is not proofreading anything. 0.85
00:01:28.780 Although they're still better in that regard than baby boomers, 1.00
00:01:31.380 who are, for some reason, renowned for their spelling, syntax, and punctuation errors.
00:01:36.460 Not to mention their inordinate love of the ellipsis.
00:01:39.440 Which I don't quite understand, but that's neither here nor there.
00:01:42.960 Let's continue.
00:01:43.840 News.com.au spoke to high school and university students to explain their fear.
00:01:48.840 If I had to make a phone call, I would freak out, one said.
00:01:51.420 When I do make a call, I usually sit down and write potential responses to what I think they'll say to me,
00:01:56.660 just so I'm prepared.
00:01:58.080 Another said that it was best just to stay away from phone calls.
00:02:01.180 It feels like I'm not reinforcing the statement, stranger danger, she said.
00:02:05.720 It's been a warning we've all grown up with.
00:02:07.880 Aaron McGovern, 21, told news.com.au that any thought of making a phone call is anxiety-inducing.
00:02:14.040 If I'm tasked with calling someone important, the prospect might bring me to tears, she said.
00:02:19.760 The sense of fear of failure contributes to my heightened sense of stress associated with phone calls.
00:02:25.000 Typically, I'll prepare by jotting down what I want to say on paper and imagine what the other person might say, she said.
00:02:30.880 If the other person doesn't respond how I imagined, my reaction and response becomes awkward.
00:02:35.480 So you get the idea.
00:02:36.700 Very, very upset.
00:02:37.880 Reduced to tears by phone calls.
00:02:39.060 I have to do something I don't want to do.
00:02:40.700 Do you understand what I'm saying?
00:02:41.360 I do not want to do this!
00:02:42.540 And it continues with more examples of young people who go to elaborate lengths to avoid phone calls or who prepare for a phone call, like it's the MCATs or something.
00:02:53.580 I'm not sure I've ever spoken on the phone to someone in Gen Z before for any, like, extended period of time, but I'm sure I have.
00:03:01.940 But if I ever do again, now that I know that they're writing their responses ahead of time, like, it would be fun to throw some stuff at them that they didn't prepare for.
00:03:10.980 I wasn't prepared for this!
00:03:12.340 I need to prepare!
00:03:13.120 You know, start the conversation like, hey, um, how's it going, by the way?
00:03:18.120 Did you know that a reindeer's eyeballs turn blue in winter?
00:03:22.380 You know, just a curveball.
00:03:23.380 Something they did, like, they don't have anything in their notes for that.
00:03:25.380 You can be pretty sure.
00:03:26.620 Have them scrambling and looking through their notes for a response.
00:03:28.960 Uh, hang on, uh, blue, you say?
00:03:31.760 I, uh, uh, wow, all right, I, and then it just bursts into tears.
00:03:37.120 And that's how I imagine the conversation going, which would be kind of funny.
00:03:39.780 Now, of course, as far as Gen Z is concerned, uh, this all has very little to do with phone calls per se.
00:03:46.540 Um, the problem is much bigger than that.
00:03:48.620 And this is why I emphasize this all the time, because it's, I think it's something that we still hasn't quite, it doesn't quite sink in for us.
00:03:54.140 They are the first generation of humans in world history to be raised in an environment where a majority of their communication is not done through spoken language.
00:04:05.980 What did you say?
00:04:07.380 For every other generation of humans that has ever existed, almost all of the conversing that they did on a daily basis, almost all of the communicating they did on a daily basis, was conducted, whether in person or by phone, through spoken communication.
00:04:21.520 But for Gen Z, most of them were in elementary school and, and, uh, the rest weren't even born when the iPhone was introduced.
00:04:31.540 And so they've had smartphones since they were young children, a lot of them.
00:04:34.540 And so a majority of the conversation interaction that they have on a daily basis since they were small children has happened through that device using visual communication.
00:04:46.380 What better New Year's resolution than building a daily habit of prayer and meditation?
00:04:50.620 Prayer can help you cultivate an attitude of gratitude.
00:04:53.280 Focusing on what you're thankful for can increase positive emotions and improve overall well-being.
00:04:57.980 Hallow is the number one Christian prayer app in the U.S.
00:05:00.460 It's helped me maintain a daily prayer routine, and it can help you to download the app for free at Hallow.com slash Matt Walsh.
00:05:06.040 You can set prayer reminders and track your progress along the way.
00:05:08.720 Not sure where to start?
00:05:09.420 Check out Father Mike Schmitz's Bible in a Year, available on the Hallow app for brief daily reflections and readings,
00:05:14.860 or pray alongside Mark Wahlberg, Jim Caviezel, even some world-class athletes.
00:05:18.380 With Hallow, you can customize a personal prayer plan that works for you.
00:05:22.200 Listen wherever you are with downloadable offline sessions.
00:05:24.800 Using Hallow to connect with others to share your beliefs and values can provide a sense of belonging, support, and foster a sense of community as well.
00:05:31.760 Ultimately, we'll learn how to become better individuals in spite of today's broken world.
00:05:35.020 We strive to become more like Christ in our daily lives through prayer, fasting, and giving.
00:05:39.940 Download Hallow at Hallow.com slash Matt Walsh and get an exclusive three months free.
00:05:43.840 That's three months absolutely free at Hallow.com slash Matt Walsh.
00:05:48.000 Now, millennials are barely in a better position.
00:05:50.440 Smartphones took over our lives right around the time we graduated high school or college, depending on how old we are.
00:05:56.560 And so our adult lives have been dominated by these devices.
00:06:02.360 But for Gen Z, their entire lives have been consumed by them, which is to say they don't really know how to speak to people. 1.00
00:06:12.380 Do the chickens have large talons?
00:06:14.820 I don't understand a word you just said.
00:06:17.160 They've been conditioned to—and it's not their fault.
00:06:19.900 They've been conditioned to communicate through memes and GIFs and emojis and choppy internet slang.
00:06:25.580 That is so fetch.
00:06:27.360 And again, communicating almost entirely visually.
00:06:30.620 It's not to say they don't talk to people around them.
00:06:33.140 But if you're on your phone 10, 12 hours a day, you're constantly communicating in one form or another with other people.
00:06:39.700 So it's like expecting a child raised by wolves in the forest to come back to civilization and hold a coherent conversation with you.
00:06:46.640 It's just not going to happen.
00:06:48.580 And that's the problem.
00:06:51.680 And then, like, how does this problem compound itself?
00:06:54.720 What does the exponential growth look like years from now when you've got another generation who were also raised on the phones, almost all their communication visually, but they were raised by parents who themselves were raised that way?
00:07:12.480 But we are going to get to a point.
00:07:14.380 I think idiocracy, people say it's prophetic, but idiocracy from what I remember, they went 500 years in the future and people, you know, the average IQ was like 70 or 60 or something.
00:07:24.580 I think they were very optimistic.
00:07:26.380 I think if things, if something doesn't radically change, in the next, like, 150 years, I think people are going to be communicating, the verbal in-person communication will basically be grunts.
00:07:39.080 Mama! 1.00
00:07:40.940 And hand gesturing.
00:07:43.220 Like, there's going to be basically no coherent verbal communication at all.
00:07:47.920 That's where we're headed.
00:07:48.440 Now, with all that said, putting all that to the same, they are not wrong about phone calls, though.
00:07:54.780 Now, they may be wrong to cry about it, but it is true that there is very rarely a good reason for a phone call to be made or received.
00:08:03.220 And I was out ahead of this curve five years ago when I canceled phone calls on this show.
00:08:07.720 In fact, I think that was one of the very first things I canceled when we first started this segment.
00:08:11.600 It amazes me still every day that in the year 2020, there are still people, lots, even probably billions of people, who will intentionally pick up their phone, dial a number, and attempt to have a purposeful live conversation with another human being on the other.
00:08:26.120 Which means that for the last five years, none of you should have been making phone calls because they were already canceled.
00:08:29.780 You should know that.
00:08:30.800 There's no need for me to rehash it because I'm going to assume that all of you have listened to every single episode for the past five years.
00:08:36.380 But on the off chance that a few of you have neglected your duties in consuming every piece of content that I have ever produced, then I will just reiterate the basic point, which is, you know, I am an advocate of face-to-face human communication.
00:08:49.160 I'm not necessarily a fan of that either in every context, but it's a bad time, Bob.
00:08:52.900 All right.
00:08:53.480 From a personal and civilizational perspective, it is the most worthwhile and productive form of communication.
00:08:59.260 But long-form writing, like writing books and letters, is second to that.
00:09:04.840 And then what you have online is distant behind it.
00:09:08.860 But if you're going to communicate with someone in a non-face-to-face format, it can almost always be handled quicker and more efficiently with a text or email.
00:09:16.960 So, you know, we've all been in a situation where you send somebody a text with a simple question or statement, and horrifically, they call you to respond to it.
00:09:26.720 Like you send them a text, and then you look down, and you see their number popping up on your phone.
00:09:30.860 And there are a few feelings worse than that.
00:09:34.840 Not feelings that you're going to cry, but just like a mixture of irritation and befuddlement.
00:09:42.940 It's just like, what are you, why are you doing this?
00:09:45.460 We're texting.
00:09:46.260 Why are you doing this?
00:09:47.140 And then the response ends up being something that could have been conveyed in one sentence via text.
00:09:53.540 Like, even worse, you'll have someone text you to set up a phone call, to schedule a call.
00:09:57.600 I mean, I'll be honest.
00:09:58.200 I have people in my phone right now that have been texting me for, like, months.
00:10:02.360 Hey, let's schedule a call.
00:10:03.700 It's like, for all this time, you just, whatever you want to say, just say it.
00:10:07.380 It's not, and then we schedule it, and the day finally comes, and we do our little call.
00:10:12.460 And it turns out that whatever needed to be said could have been said in the very text that were used to schedule the call in the first place.
00:10:19.960 So the problem is that most people really have no idea, and this goes back to a lack of spoken communication.
00:10:27.980 They have no idea how to end a conversation, especially one that's happening on the phone, because a lot of the verbal, a lot of the visual cues are not there.
00:10:35.580 So the discussion that should be, by all rights, 30 seconds long becomes five minutes or 30 minutes.
00:10:40.660 As the few sentences they needed to convey have already been conveyed, and now it has to be padded with, like, 50 pounds of small talk.
00:10:48.960 To the extent that Gen Z is objecting to all of that, they're actually fully justified, and I feel it's necessary to point that out. 1.00
00:10:56.860 In fact, you could make an argument that phone companies should be mandated to disable the phone function, like, the actual phone function on the phone should be disabled,
00:11:05.300 because there's really no reason why anyone needs to use it for that purpose anymore.
00:11:08.420 Except for kids.
00:11:09.580 It's the opposite.
00:11:10.300 Like, if they do have phones, it should only be to make phone calls and not to do any of the internet stuff.
00:11:15.360 So you have to adjust the laws accordingly.
00:11:18.000 Better yet, I guess, I guess what it comes down to is probably we should all just toss our phones in the ocean and be done with the whole thing.
00:11:26.260 Might not be the healthiest for the fish, but it would be better for us.
00:11:30.220 But until that happens, I'm not going to judge Gen Z for their phone call aversion.
00:11:35.400 So who am I canceling?
00:11:38.060 I guess phones are canceled.
00:11:40.560 Again.
00:11:41.980 Except the one you're using to listen to this right now.
00:11:43.880 That one is fine, but the rest are canceled.
00:11:47.260 Hey, I just made here.
00:11:49.380 And this is crazy.
00:11:51.700 But here's my number.
00:11:53.940 So call me maybe.