In my early adulthood I worked as a technical phone support representative and sometimes as a customer service representative for a call center that had contracts with different companies; mostly software and game related. I found this really helped quite quickly to tone down my anxiety. When I was younger, a teenager, I would often have problems even talking over the phone to people (including me calling a Technical Support person). That was fading by the time I turned 20 and those few years on phone support pretty much eliminated it.
With Internet VoIP programs like Ventrillo, Teamspeak, Mumble, and Skype, there's also an easy-and-free way to talk to multiple people at once. It's like a stepping stone for being able to talk to people face to face or in a group. First you start out with things like forums and text chat over the Internet (WrongPlanet promotes IRC), then you try more informal things like Internet VoIP mass chat, then try talking with people more over the phone, then face to face. All of this takes out certain elements that may be initially stressful to try and handle all at once along with the nuances of actually making conversation.
05 Jun 2011, 8:58 pm
