Resisting the tyranny of immediacy: Why not every ring deserves an answer

THERE was a time when a ringing phone signalled urgency. It cut through the air with purpose, announcing news that could not wait.

Today, that sound has been diluted by excess. Phones ring for everything and nothing, that is, they ring for convenience, for reassurance, for questions that could be answered with a glance or a moment of patience.

All this benefits the caller, not the receiver. In this environment, the expectation of instant availability has quietly hardened into a social norm.

To let a call go unanswered is increasingly interpreted as indifference, rudeness or even withdrawal. Yet this assumption deserves scrutiny. Not every call merits immediacy and not every moment should be surrendered to interruption.

Phone calls are invasive

My own resistance to constant phone calls did not emerge from a desire to retreat from people or from the world. It grew from experience, specifically, from recognising how easily attention can be fractured and how costly those fractures become over time.

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Work that requires thinking, writing or judgment thrives on continuity. So does emotional steadiness. Each unexpected call imposes a cognitive toll characterised by a break in focus, a forced pivot and in many instances, a demand for instant decision-making.

When multiplied across a day, these interruptions erode not only productivity, but also clarity of thought.

We have come to confuse immediacy with care. The faster the response, the more invested we appear. But speed is a poor proxy for attentiveness. A hurried answer, given under pressure, is often less thoughtful than a delayed one shaped by reflection.

Delay, when chosen deliberately, often, can be an act of respect, toward one’s own obligations and toward the other person, who ultimately benefits from a more considered response.

In this sense, boundaries are not walls as they are simply filters. They allow what truly matters to pass through while holding back what can wait.

Indiscriminate use of phones

In my personal life, this realisation crystallised in a mundane, but telling pattern. My late husband often called for details that did not warrant immediate intervention, such as, where an item was placed, whether an ingredient remained in the cupboard, what could have been discovered with a few moments of searching or remembering.

The calls were not malicious, but they revealed how technology can become a substitute for memory, presence and shared responsibility.

When the phone becomes the first recourse, rather than the last, it diminishes the habits that make daily life sustainable, such as attention, routine and mutual awareness.

Choosing not to answer those calls was not an act of hostility. It was a practical correction. It restored the expectation that some problems are meant to be solved independently and that not every uncertainty requires external validation.

In doing so, it protected the quiet spaces in which thinking and creativity occur. Silence, after all, is not emptiness. It is the medium in which ideas form and in which individuals reconnect with their own priorities.

Advocates of constant availability often argue that phone calls are the most human form of communication, where that voice conveys warmth, nuance and immediacy in ways text cannot.

There is truth in this. A live conversation often clarifies misunderstandings quickly and strengthen bonds when used appropriately.

The problem lies not in the call itself, but in its indiscriminate use. When every interaction is elevated to the level of urgency, that a call implies, the signal is lost in the noise.

Texts, audios, emails aren’t invasive

Asynchronous communication, such as texts, emails, audio messages, offer a more humane alternative for much of daily life.

These formats decouple communication from time, allowing each person to engage when they are mentally and emotionally prepared. A text respects the recipient’s autonomy over their attention.

An audio message preserves tone and nuance without demanding immediate reciprocity. Far from diminishing connection, these tools do enhance it by aligning communication with human rhythms rather than technological capability.

This distinction is especially important in professional contexts, where the costs of interruption are well documented. Organisations spend millions attempting to cultivate deep work, strategic thinking and innovation, only to undermine these goals through cultures of constant interruption.

Clear norms, regarding work hours, escalation paths and preferred channels, exist precisely because not every issue is urgent. When these norms are respected, trust increases. When they are ignored, burnout follows.

Channel expectations

Curiously, we are less disciplined about norms in our personal lives, where expectations often remain implicit and unexamined.

One person assumes a call is welcome at any time and yet another experiences it as intrusive. Without shared understanding, resentment quietly accumulates. We must make our expectations explicit in terms of what constitutes an emergency, which channels are preferred, when interruptions are acceptable, etcetera. It is a form of relational hygiene, reducing friction and preserving goodwill.

Critics of boundaries worry that such clarity drains warmth from relationships, rendering them mechanical and distant. The opposite is often true. Boundaries, when articulated with kindness, protect against exhaustion and enable generosity.

A person who is perpetually interrupted has little left to give. A person, who can safeguard their focus, is also more likely to show up fully when it truly counts.

This is particularly relevant for those engaged in creative or cognitively demanding work. Writers, researchers, caregivers and leaders all rely on extended periods of concentration.

To fragment these periods with nonessential calls is to devalue the work itself. Boundaries, in this context, are not self-indulgent, they are simply a commitment to excellence and responsibility.

Tech-enabled boundaries useful

Importantly, the ability to set such boundaries should not be a privilege reserved for the powerful. Parents balancing caregiving and employment, students managing academic pressure and workers in precarious roles, all benefit from norms that legitimise delayed responses.

Modern tools, do-not-disturb settings, scheduled messages, availability indicators, have enabled these boundaries to be visible and negotiable without sacrificing approachability. Used thoughtfully, technology indeed supports restraint rather than undermine it.

None of this suggests rigidity. Healthy boundaries are elastic, not absolute. Emergencies happen. Moments arise that call for real-time dialogue, empathy or urgency.

The key is proportionality. When everything is urgent, nothing is. When urgency is reserved for what truly matters, it retains its meaning.

No one owes instant accessibility

What do we owe one another in an age of perpetual connection? We owe respect for time, attention and cognitive limits. We owe honesty about our capacities and constraints.

We do not owe instant accessibility to every ping, ring or vibration. A society that recognises this is better positioned to cultivate thoughtful discourse, sustainable work and resilient relationships.

To those determined to put through five phone calls in one minute, resisting the tyranny of immediacy by the receiver, is not a rejection of connection. It is, rightly so, a recalibration of it. It is an insistence that technology serves human values rather than dictate them.

By choosing when and how we respond, we reclaim agency over our attention, in essence, the most finite resource we possess.

Conclusion

In the end, letting a phone ring is not an act of neglect. It can be an act of care: care for one’s work, for one’s mental health and for the quality of relationships.

When calls are answered with intention rather than reflex, conversations deepen. They become less frequent, perhaps but more meaningful.

The challenge before us is not to silence our devices entirely, but to use them with discernment. If we can do so, with clarity, generosity and mutual respect, we may rediscover the value of quiet and the power of choosing our moments of connection.

Then, when the phone does ring and we decide to answer, it will be because it truly deserves our full attention.

Ndoro-Mkombachoto is a former academic and banker. She is the chairperson of NetOne Financial Services, a subsidiary of NetOne Telecomms. She has consulted widely in strategy, entrepreneurship, private sector development, financial literacy/inclusion for firms that include Seed Co Africa, Hwange Colliery, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Standard Bank of South Africa Home Loans, International Finance Corporation/World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, Danish International Development Agency, Canadian International Development Agency, Kellogg Foundation. Ndoro-Mkombachoto is a writer, property investor, manufacturer and keen gardener. Her podcast on YouTube is @HeartfeltWithGloria. — +263 7713362177/ gloria@ sustainwisestrategies.co.za.