Breaking up through e-mail, text messaging or voice mail is so very five years ago. Now clever technology makes it even easier to cut someone loose.
Don’t bother telling your ex-best friend not to e-mail. No worries explaining to your blind date that there won’t be a second. There are new services that allow a person to avoid someone completely. And the dumpees might not realize they are being dropped. Consider it the digital ditch, upgraded.
Jeisson Neira, 20, of Schaumburg performed a digital ditch when he blocked a friend from his cell-phone voice mail.
“I wasn’t happy with her and I didn’t want her to leave me a message,” said Neira.
Neira used YouMail, an online service that organizes cell-phone address books. The DitchMail feature allows users to block certain callers from voice mail.
The service doesn’t just block certain numbers from voice mail. It goes one step further and helps members pretend they are unreachable. Callers might hear a busy signal or a recording that says the phone number is out of service.
Neira picked the busy tone so his friend would think there was a problem with his phone. He removed her from the DitchMail list after the fight was resolved.
“When she called me back, she said, ‘Something must be wrong with your phone; it wouldn’t let me leave you a voice mail.’ I told her, ‘It must have been full,'” Neira said.
These services mean people can avoid conflict like never before, said psychiatrist J.P. Czarnkowski with Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
“Twenty years ago if the phone was ringing, you picked up the phone and had to talk to them,” Czarnkowski said.
“Now you can screen anyone calling and you don’t have to pick up the phone if you don’t want to,” he said.
But not picking up means the person can leave a voice message. And you’re expected to call back. That’s why YouMail co-founder Ken Brickley said the busy tone is one of the most popular DitchMail recordings.
“People just don’t like confrontation,” Brickley said.
Czarnkowski understands that humans like to avoid confrontation. But he’s concerned that this type of behavior is becoming acceptable. In the past, he said, mental health professionals would consider it a red flag if a patient used a service to regularly block communication from family or friends.
“It was considered pathology,” Czarnkowski said. “It was odd behavior, and now you can have a professional service.”
DitchMail isn’t the only way to avoid phone calls. For $5.99 a month, AT&T users can block calls from up to 10 phone numbers.
Block those calls
Many e-mail providers also offer a digital-ditch option. Both Gmail and Microsoft Outlook allow users to block messages. It’s as easy as moving a person to a blocked senders list.
If a confrontation develops while you’re actually on the phone with someone, all is not lost. You can still bail.
The Pocket Get Off the Phone Machine from Big Mouth Toys is about the size of a cell phone and plays six sounds, such as a doorbell or static.
Simply play the machine into the phone and end the call. The machine sells for $9.89 at PrankPlace.com.
Those anticipating a confrontation or who simply want the option of a quick exit can still rely on a cell phone.
For a small fee, a cell-phone user can purchase a recorded call and claim an urgent reason to leave. Virgin Mobile USA and Cingular Wireless offer a fake phone call that users can schedule in advance.
Cosmopolitan magazine also launched a similar service, Cosmo Fake Calls. For 99 cents, a woman can order her phone to ring at a scheduled time.
The recorded message instructs users when to speak and how to react to the phone call.
Why not just have a friend call during a bad date?
Because most people are lousy actors, said John Searles, books and special projects director for Cosmopolitan. But Cosmo Fake Calls, he said, “has the pauses timed exactly right, the prompts are pitch perfect.”
Ditching out of dates isn’t new, but Czarnkowski said that using an impersonal service, instead of a friend, is a concerning cultural change.
“We had this years ago too. But you had friends, actual relationships to help you,” Czarnkowski said. “Now you have professional services to do it for you.”
Czarnkowski is concerned because he sees patients who don’t have actual relationships. These people often work from home and sometimes don’t leave the house for weeks.
“Now it’s really possible that you can live your life in MySpace,” Czarnkowski said.
What’s the etiquette?
Using a digital ditch also can seem socially questionable.
DitchMail, for example, allows users to leave a recorded message in place of a voicemail. When the soon-to-be ex calls, he hears a personalized tell-off before the system hangs up.
So a person can leave a message that says “John, it’s over. Don’t call again” before hanging up.
“It’s the ultimate way to get a last word,” Brickley said.
But to mental health professionals, it may also be a sign of a greater problem.
“Avoiding relations with people can lead to serious pathology,” Czarnkowski said.
Sarah Riley, 23, of Aurora agrees that many people, especially young people, are turning to technology to avoid confrontation.
“I feel in this day and age, people rely a lot more on electronic ways to get out of things,” Riley said.
But Riley said that not all digital ditches are same. Using services to block phone calls or e-mails seems “harsh,” but a fake emergency phone call during a date may be socially acceptable, she said.
Dumpees, however, can likely connect the dots if their phone calls or e-mails are never returned.
It may be easy for the person ending the relationship to cease contact, but the jilted may be left with unanswered questions.
If a person is digitally ditched, Czarnkowski recommends making personal contact so you can communicate your feelings. “Just be a human and say, ‘I feel very deeply wounded that you did this to me. I feel very rejected,'” he said.
And consider it a bit of good riddance.
A person who has no qualms about ceasing contact without explanation may have “underlying psychopathology,” Czarnkowski said.
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Cell phone may be off but digital tracker stays on
Caller ID can’t catch everything. Turn off your cell phone during a movie or a business meeting and you don’t know who called.
But there is a new digital footprint that catches these calls. YouMail is an online service that lets users manage their cell phone records, including incoming calls. The phone can even be turned off and the calls are still listed.
Ironically, YouMail also offers services, such as blocking a caller from voice mail, that can be used to ditch someone digitally.
But the call records take away the “Sorry, my phone was off” excuse.
“What’s interesting is when you go through the call history, there are icons on whether [the caller] listened to your greeting and hung up, left a message or just hung up,” said Ken Brickley, YouMail co-founder.
That means you can see if a client tried calling or if a pushy salesperson called three times in one hour.
How much is too many phone calls? Sarah Riley, 23, of Aurora said people in a new relationship don’t need to call more than three times in one day.
“If we’re still in the getting-to-know-me dating phase, I would be weirded out,” Riley said.
— Emilie Le Beau
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q@tribune.com
