The First Minute of Every Phone Call Is Torture Now⁠↗

Like a finger trap, these desires for remedy plunge the user only further into the technological murk and its associated despair.

That’s the bad news, but it has an upside. A new ritual for telephonic greeting has emerged: discoursing about the collapsing infrastructure of telephonic intercourse.

Smartphones and their peripherals will continue to proliferate, and with their spread comes a melty languor: Things that once felt simple and good have become complex and insufferable.

The performance of technological error does two things. First, it tames the error. Rather than allowing it to frustrate or undermine the speaker or listener, calling it out helps corral it. You might not be able to get your phone to work the way you’d hoped, but at least you can avoid letting that failure poison the entire conversation. And second, in so doing, the performance opens the door to a new kind of phatic greeting.