Among the respondents, 49.2 percent said that the biggest cause of call phobia came from being used to messenger apps, sending texts, and engaging in ‘untact’ conversations. (image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Roughly 50 percent of South Korean adults were found to be suffering from ‘telephone phobia,’ or a fear of talking on the phone, according to a recent study.
JobKorea and Albamon, the two main South Korean job search portals, conducted a joint survey of 1,037 men and women, 46.5 percent of whom said they are afraid of talking on the phone.
University students (47.3 percent) were slightly more afraid of phone calls than working adults (44.8 percent).
Among the respondents, 49.2 percent said that the biggest cause of call phobia came from being used to messenger apps, sending texts, and engaging in ‘untact’ conversations.
Others said they were afraid of making verbal mistakes during phone calls (35.5 percent) or they were not confident enough to engage in a phone conversation (28.4 percent).
Another 45.2 percent of respondents said they were suffering from a call phobia so severe that it was affecting their everyday lives, with working adults (53.5 percent) outnumbering university students (41.3 percent) by more than 10 percentage points.
While 44 percent of respondents said they prefer engaging in ‘untact’ conversations using texts and messenger apps, only 41.8 percent said they prefer face-to-face conversations.
Among respondents preferring ‘untact’ conversations, only 12.9 percent said they like to engage in phone conversations.
The data also showed that 53.8 percent of respondents said they sometimes prepared a script prior to engaging in phone conversation.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
