[greybox]

> Are the American's you're referencing living in the EU or back in the US?

The EU

> Could the language barrier be a reason for their hesitancy?

No:

> (and it's not a language barrier problem, because everyone speaks english)

>I've heard stories about gen-z/alpha being more app brained

I think you might be on to something there, maybe it's more of a generational thing than a cultural difference between American and EU citizens.

[danielbln]

German Millennial here, I'd much prefer an app to having to call someone. I hate calling anyone, and I know I'm not alone there. Let me text or use an app and I'm in.

[greybox]

I am a millennial and maybe I am just in the Minority of Millennials that quite likes talking to people even when It's contractual.

I walk to restaurants if I can to avoid using Wolt for instance.

Then again, I appreciate that AI is probably a better driver than 60% of taxi drivers.

[Henchman21]

Can I ask why you hate calling? I also know you’re not alone— many people I know are the same but I can’t seem to get a reasonable answer to why that doesn’t seem to boil down to social anxiety.

[nemomarx]

It's also a little disorganized - on an app I can see all the options and my choices when ordering food for example, over the phone you have to keep that in your head or write it down before hand which is higher effort. This goes for other things too, like navigating a phone tree and explaining your situation to someone or ordering a taxi and being sure you have your location and the destination correct, etc

[Zak]

I'm not who you asked, but social anxiety seems like a good reason to have this preference.

I also dislike ordering food by phone for practical reasons. Call quality might be bad, person's accent might be hard for me to understand, I might be hard for them to understand, the chance an error will go unnoticed even if they read back the order is higher than a website where I can read it myself, and in many cases I have to give a credit card number to a person, which has a higher probability of leading to fraud than most online payments in 2025.

[Henchman21]

Its an understandable reason but I don’t think I agree its good. One should not have significant social anxiety around simply talking to someone over the phone. I can’t wrap my head around why this is okay.

But I have to admit it is a thing that is actively happening and that “phone culture” such as it was, is dying or already dead.

I feel like I have strayed far from the topic, but honestly if this is what smartphones have wrought, we should stop using them. (Sent from my iPhone of course)

[Zak]

It seems a little presumptuous to declare what other people should and should not be anxious about.

I'd advise therapy to anyone who has so much phone anxiety they would hesitate to call emergency services in an emergency or who misses out on significant opportunities as a result. A mere preference for ordering food delivery on a screen driven by social anxiety does not rise to the level of a problem in my mind. Nearly everyone is irrational about something, usually several somethings.