This! Phone calls are most impolite way to begin communication in my opinion. I'm probably not alone, because a lot of my acquaintances send a chat message first, like "hi, can I call you right now?".

It can also lead to priority inversion. You handle the caller first despite having a higher priority (like a person next to you). Phone calls feel more urgent. Some people exploit this (e.g. salesmen).

(I might have phone anxiety, but weaker than in the article, and this is just me rationalizing it?)

A weaker variant of this are WhatsApp voice messages. You can delay listening to them, but you cannot skim to the relevant parts and must listen to the drivel before. "Hi ... uh ... sorry for this voice message ... uh ... but I'm too busy to type right know so I thought I'd rather talk ..." Am I the only one who finds this impolite and rude? Obviously this person does not value my time because I have to invest the time to listen. A text message would take a fraction of the time to read. Especially, because people would leave out the drivel. The waste of time multiplies if such voice messages go to group chats.

Turn off vibrations, disable voicemail and set your phone to silent. That way you only get calls when you are looking at your phone. Missed calls go to your call register and you can call them back at a convenient time to your.

Yes, I often do this. Call register is missing the subject and even the name for unknown numbers.

Just don’t answer, or, better yet, stick your phone on silent or do not disturb when you are busy. you’re projecting that emotion on to the caller, I see an incoming call as an indication that someone would like to speak to me, it a demand for attention. If I can’t take the call I won’t answer and will call them back (or email to arrange a more suitable time) when I can.

Why not do this first every time?

> email to arrange a more suitable time

Or better yet, provide the important details over email and then if there is some unimaginable reason why an audio medium is still required to convey information (identify a bird call? place a long distance call with a whistle?) then contact over the phone.

Good luck convincing the entire world to do this.

Seeing phone to silent is a lot easier than expecting the world not to call you and getting annoyed when they do.

Because this assumes the person is always contactable by email. There is a none zero chance that the person is available for a phone call but not in front of email. Instead you see the email 3 hours later, the sender is now busy as are you so you land up in a game of email ping pong trying to arrange a time. Just put your phone on silent or don’t answer it if you’re not available.

Wait, it gets better. You're watching movie with someone. That someone is getting a call. Pause that movie. See you in 30 minutes.

Phones don't even have a polite way to decline conversation, a button labeled "Call me 1 hour later" or similar.

Sure they do. Mine (Android) at least, has an option to decline the call and send one of a variety of text messages to the caller including exactly that one (I'm busy right now, call me back in an hour) with one touch. Does iOS not support this sort of thing as well?

Sometimes you need that. The issue isn't the phone call, it when people don't agree on what the phone is for.