Phone vs Face-to-Face

Post Reply New Topic

AS stereotype 1a: We tend to lack skills in picking up on (and expressing) non-verbal cues, such as body language and facial expressions.
AS stereotype 1b: Making eye contact can be uncomfortable and/or difficult.
AS stereotype 2: We tend to prefer face-to-face communication over phone conversation.

Discuss the discrepancy.


(I have some ideas but I don't want to influence the responses. In fact I'm probably just going to sit back and watch the discussion, if there is one.)

1A: I don't know. I can tell when someone is mad,though.
1B: Yeah, I always look in another direction of the person Im talking to.
2: yes, I hate talking on the phone. I like text messaging or emailing. I like talking to the person face to face

Non-verbal clues are hit or miss with me. Sometimes I know what a person is after, sometimes I don't.
Eye contact was more difficult as a youngster; still, I do have problems with this at times.
I hate phone conversations. Oy! I guess face to face is preferable.

1a) I've decoded much of non-verbal sapiens expression, but a lot of them are really obvious now. It was a cruel learning curve, though - so it can be overcome for some of us.

1b) Yeah, eye contact sucks - but ALL people on the phone sound the same. I'm talking to a phone, so I don't know who you are! Don't tell me "it's me!" because you are a phone right now and it means nothing. I can tell a man's voice (just the sex, not the specific person) apart, but women and children - could be anybody.

2) Not a big fan of the phone at all. Face at least I can gather a little more info.

- AS stereotype 1a: We tend to lack skills in picking up on (and expressing) non-verbal cues, such as body language and facial expressions.
I'm not so bad at it actually though it's difficult for me to recognize when someone is bored. About me and facial expressions I tend to be too much sometimes, we can see that it's something I've learnt and doesn't come naturally like the others.

- AS stereotype 1b: Making eye contact can be uncomfortable and/or difficult.
It is definitely uncomfortable for me, I tend to avoid that contact and try to look somewhere else in the face instead.

- AS stereotype 2: We tend to prefer face-to-face communication over phone conversation.
I agree. But I have periods where I'm better at it and others where it just makes me feel so anxious because I know it demands me a lot of efforts and concentration to get the messages correctly and be able to answer something that is not totally out of subject. So sometimes I put my phone in off mode for some days and meet the persons I have to meet one by one instead.

AS stereotype 1a:
Yes, I still have troubles expressing them myself, but I am trying to learn that somehow (if I wouldn't burst out laughing when trying to make gestures or nodding, I just think it looks stupid if I do it myself or feel reminded of how stupid it can look like if others do it).
However, I became better on picking up on facial expressions and have just little troubles with the tone of voice because I always focussed on voice and what is being said and figured out what can be what quite early. I can recognize basic facial expressions quite easily by now and the more complex ones usually too (if the environment allows me too), but just like LilFlo, I wouldn't be able to tell if someone is bored. I have to focus on voice then and even then it could be that the person I'm talking too is just tired because s/he had a hard day, so I sometimes ask if the person in question is bored. I also have a monotone voice so expressing my emotions through just my voice is a hard task (it feels fake if I try to, I then feel like some euphoric person talking, am annoyed by myself and I guess it sounds weird, so I simply don't do that). I think I still don't come off as natural as the average NT does.

AS stereotype 1b:
Oh yes, definitely agree. I also look at some other spot in the face, I prefer the point in between the eyes about in between the eyebrows and/or the nose. This is usually a good trick to fake eye-contact, even my psychologist/debugger thought I would look her into the eyes and for that reason even excluded her suspicion that I could fit into the autism spectrum, it was also the first question she asked me when I told her about my suspicion of having AS. To quote her: "Yes, this explains a lot. [...] But then again, how comes you can keep eye contact without any problems?"
In rare occasions it can happen that I stare though and I bet it is visible that I don't look into the eyes when the person is closer to me than my debugger usually is in sessions.

AS stereotype 2:
Once again, yes, definitely.
Just the thought of having to call someone makes me want to pretend I lost my voice for some reason. When someone from my family has birthday (except for my closest relatives which are my parents and my brother and sometimes my father's parents (because they're pending between two locations and staying once here and once there) they are quite distant in location), we usually call them and wish them happy birthday one by one. I really dislike that and wish nobody is at home or the connection is broken for some reason. It's not that I don't want to wish them happy birthday, quite the opposite (it can hurt a person if they get the impression one forgot the birthday or doesn't care I guess, at least it would hurt me even though I don't care a lot about birthdays). It is simply the fact that I think it is this uncomfortable. Often a conversation ends because of the typical "awkward silence" as I don't have anything to say, often it is even just limited to basic stuff like "How is the weather over there?" or "How is it going in school?" (the latter one stresses me even because I've made bad experiences with school and mentioning school to me in person/"in audio" is causing stress). But all in all, I even dislike it when someone calls and the phone rings, it's like a very weak moment of (negative) surprise, a minimalistic adrenaline rush in some cases. I can't think of another sound from everyday-life that causes this.

And once again, I managed to write a novel.

Why wouldn't we feel more comfortable talking on the phone, where we don't have to worry about our body language and interpreting others', and where we don't have to make eye contact?

Some cues is better than no cues? The pain of having the least amount of information possible (i.e. only a voice) is worse than the pain of trying to express ourselves properly in front of others?

1a: I actually have many troubles with non-verbal cues.
1b: I don't know. I just don't look people in the eyes because I don't feel it as a necessary thing. It's not natural for me to keep making eye-contact for more than just a few seconds.
2: I prefear face-to-face communication over phone conversation.

I've often thought of this and wondered why I hate talking on the telephone. I'm guessing face to face you at least get some information, even if we can't process it all. On the phone, it feels like a complete vacuum with no information apart from the words. It seems like people will use different tones and phraseology to mean different things, but I'm oblivious to it. Written down communication on the other hand is less ambiguous.

I hate the telephone, but I think it's more about the jarring nature of it vs the conversation itself. I hate the ringing, and it always feels like a rude interruption/distraction to me. With texts, there's no running around trying to figure out where I put the phone down last.

I hate the telephone. It is even more difficult than a face-to-face conversation. On the phone I never know when it's time to talk and the other person does not see the question mark on my face (so that he can react to it). Face-to-face is more information. Even when I do not get all, I have a better understanding. Both are or can be exhausting.

#1. Sound quality is worse over the phone than in person, making interpretation of the sounds more difficult.
#2. Phones are disruptive. There is this expectation with a phone that when it rings, everything else needs to be dropped to pay attention to it... and that is the sort of thing that really throws us off our game.
#3. Having to actually hold a phone handset to one's ear is yet another form of disruption. Though not always applicable for those with "hands free kits" or whatever, it otherwise dominates one hand, the posture, and can be uncomfortable against the side of the face.
#4. With the exception of networked calls, there has always been the implication with phones that you're being charged for your time... and that every hesitation or misspoken word costs money.


That enough for you?

I thought this was odd about me too until I thought about it. First of all. I hate the sound of the phone ringing. It just irritates me to no end. I have to get up. I'm already irritated by the time i get there. Yes I suck at eye contact but I'm okay at general body/face language. I can tell basic emotions. When you take that away it makes everything worse.

1. I don't know who I'm going to get on the phone so I don't know which script to use. Is it the one for a wrong number? a client? somebody asking for someone else? Even if I start with who is it, it's not enough time to process.
2. If the script is changed (somebody asks me who I am first) I will panic and hang up.
3. When people around me want me to lie to the person on the phone it's next to impossible for me to do it or if I try, to do it right. So I panic...
4. I can't tell some people apart, specially family members. They all sound the same to me as they were born in the same place.
5. No cues of any kind except voice. I can't tell what people are feeling by their voice, especially if it's at such a bad quality. The other person can tell how I'm feeling but I can't. They can imagine my gestures but I can't. I'm at a huge disadvantage.

I think it depends on what cues you can and can't read and how much of a disadvantage you are in each situation. My favorite way to talk is by texts or letters even if I still find it hard to decipher some text abbreviations and emoticons, I have time to look anything I might not understand up on the internet.

That's a precise summary why.

Would there be other factors, though, if the call was being made by yourself, on work time for example, when you can choose when to make the call and it is all paid for, using a comfortable headset? In this case only one of the above points applies, so would the sound quality be the only factor?

I agree that all those things apply to me personally, and it's a bit strange that I prefer face to face contact when it opposes so much of who I am. On the telephone, I tend to find myself 'lost', and I find people on the other end of the line often ask "Are you still there" simply because I never realized I was obligated to say something, or I was still digesting what they'd said. That happens in real life discussions too, but I think people are more tolerant of moments of silence than they are when speaking on the phone.