Gen Z's phonephobia is sabotaging potential relationships, writes Vanessa Feltz

If you want to know the crucial difference between my generation – I was born in 1962 – and those currently aged between 18 and 34, here it is. Today’s youth, unlike my cohort, suffer from acute “phonephobia”. Twenty-five per cent of them admit in a
survey that they have never answered their phone. When it rings, they simply ignore it. More than 50 per cent associate a phone call with bad news and a full 70 per cent prefer receiving a text to a call.

Alexander Graham Bell must be turning in his grave. Who could have predicted that his magical invention, which enabled users to communicate voice-to-voice across continents and oceans, without any of the faff of writing or typing, would lose its appeal? Who could have imagined young people would become intimidated by voice conversations and hide behind their keyboards, preferring stilted text-speak to the real thing?

I’m old enough to remember families who were, as we put it, “not on the phone”. In an emergency, they’d dash to a neighbour to ring 999 or charge to the phone box with a bag of coins. We were lucky. There were two phones in my family home, in the living room and master bedroom, fiercely guarded by mum and dad.

Pre-puberty, I was desperate to get on the “dog and bone” and chat to school pals. Post-puberty, I fell madly in love and ached to exchange sweet nothings with my beloved. But every time I inched closer to the phone, my parents behaved as if I was making a raid on the family fortunes. “Get off that phone this minute, young lady!” they’d say. “Put that receiver down!” Could they not see I was bidding farewell? How could they be so cruel?

Those of my vintage will recall phone call charges fell after 6pm. So touching the receiver before then was treated as a crime against humanity: “What is the time, Vanessa? Yes, nearly five in the afternoon! That’s another 50p docked from your pocket money.”

But we itched to chat. Even when we’d only left one another at the school gate an hour earlier, there remained so much to say. If you’d suggested that we type each other short sharp messages instead, we’d have been horrified.

I feel sorry for young people who are brimming with hormones but terrified to chat. Now single, I notice phonephobia sabotaging potential relationships. Daters only text. There’s zero chance to develop intimacy. We should never forget the late, great Bob Hoskins and his incontrovertible slogan on the BT adverts: “It’s good to talk.”