[SoftTalker]

For me, my reluctance to use the phone is that 90% of the phone calls I get are spams/scams or to put it most kindly, unsolicited. I have just developed a visceral dislike for answering phone calls. My phone is set only to ring if you're in my contacts list. Everone else goes to voicemail (I guess -- I never set it up and I never check it).

When I was young we had a landline at home and yes there were some telemarketing calls but they were not the majority. Most calls were from friends or family or legitimate other purposes. That's not how it is today, at least in my experience.

Part of it is that anything other than a local call used to cost money. So there was a financial disincentive to robo-call thousands of people hoping that you'd find one rube.

[Twistyfiasco]

How do you handle calls from unknowns like Doctors, hospitals or clinics?

[dredmorbius]

Tell them to leave a message.

The problem runs the other direction as well. Friends in the US tell me that the local hospital no longer permits direct calls to rooms, on account of both robocalls and spams. It's now necessary to call through the operator.

This is a (slight) inconvenience to friends and family, and a considerable workload and staffing burden for the hospital.

I've been predicting the death of telephony, as in a universal direct-contact, single-directory (as in: everyone has an identifier which can be reached by any other party regardless of provider) for about a decade now. It's a death-by-a-thousand-cuts phenomenon, but increasingly it's difficult or impossible to reach specific individuals or organisations by phone. The issue isn't just landlines (used by a minority of households in many states, though some such as New York are apparently still above 50%, contrast < 20% throughout much of the central US), but all public switch telephone networks.

Expect a fragmentation to various online services (FB, WhatsApp, Google, Skype, Zoom), home-rolled networks, and those who just opt out fully.

[SoftTalker]

Fortunately I've had very little need to receive calls like this but I would ask them what number they will be calling from and add that as a contact.