The latest trend from medicine - telephone phobia
It's circulating like a virus in all media, except newspapers of course, they need another 500 years until printing ink is invented: Telephone phobia is shaking the world, the fear of someone wanting to talk to you who is not present. The reason that the word sounds like nonsense and not scientific is that the other Greek phobia prefixes, as in claustrophobia (fear of space) agoraphobia (fear of place) or angoraphobia (fear of knitwear made of rabbit hair) are not as present in the language as the equally Greek telephone.
What is phone phobia and where does it suddenly come from?
The disease was first diagnosed in Europe in 1876, two years after the first electrically transmitted sentence in Frankfurt am Main, and 13 years before G. Bell's patent was registered in the USA, in the Belgian housewife Adelaise Peeters. She ran into the street and shouted: 'What am I going to say?'
After nothing had happened in the following 143 years in terms of research - the woman was simply committed to a sanatorium - media representatives and psychologists discovered in an influencer's YouTube clip that she also has difficulties with how to behave on the phone and therefore leaves it alone. Instead, she posts videos and writes text messages. Immediately, investigations were launched, supported by EU funding, which barely exceeded the defence budget by 31 billion euros.
Before Mr Apple and Ms Google invented the one-handed portable world (which is of course flat, not round), there were devices with the crazy function of talking to people who weren't even there. The word for this was made up of the Greek tele - distant, and phon - sound. There were fantastic developments for this, such as turntables that transmitted impulses and thus dialled a number. The word smartphone still contains part of the original term for nostalgic reasons, but most owners of the lithium-ion battery wasters neither know what telephoning is nor would they know how to react to a ring that is not a push message from Whatsapp.
What are the results of the studies?
Among young people, the phenomenon, now officially called telephone phobia but not yet allowed to be diagnosed until the WHO has telephoned every general practitioner, affects 97% of 9-13 year-olds, 86% of 13-19 year-olds and still 57% of 19-23 year-olds. Old people aged 24 and over were not allowed to be interviewed, because they could only be reached by telephone, and that would be paradoxical.
The disease manifests itself in panic attacks and frantic typing on the touch screen.
If it happens that your smartphone makes noises that indicate a call, don't panic. Check the display for unusual indications. It could be an old person who thinks that the mobile number serves another purpose than identifying the Whatsapp account.
For those who wonder how it is possible that someone can freely post this on their channel or podcast, but is not able to talk to a person at the other end of the 'line', it must be explained that such a video recording works as a monologue. However, if there is a person directly involved who might have other thoughts at the same time, that doesn't fit into the skulls of young people these days. It's like waiting at a crossroads: if you flash your lights, you have to think about which direction you want to go beforehand, and other road users might react in time. Things like being on time and in the same direction are now covered by the term multitasking, and adjusting to something that affects other individuals is not taught in the apps; what takes place outside the small 16:9 virtual reality is considered non-existent by the target group of the disease, like going to school, walking in the fresh air or looking over the edge of the display before crossing the street.
As always, the solution is very simple
Further gastronomic observations in two of the three major German cities showed that when young people sit together in a group, they do not talk to each other but exchange text messages using their handheld devices. Previously this was just stupid, now it is the symptom of a disease. Resourceful innkeepers have already hung the first flatscreens above the tables, which are connected to the surrounding phones via bluetooth, and when a certain number of smilies appear in the current message history, project them so that the older guests also notice that people are laughing at the table. This doesn't solve the problems of the youth, but if they were interested, they could open their mouths; but in this way, the social balance is restored so that the old no longer have the feeling of living in teenage zombie land.