#2053: Incoming Calls

[A line graph shows the portions of phone calls by type over time beginning slightly before 1990 until today.]

Incoming personal calls over time

or: why I finally stopped picking up for unknown numbers

[The x-axis is labeled with years beginning at 1990 in five-year segments up to NOW (2018). The y-axis shows a relative distribution of callers.]

[The calls are (from top to down):]

Appointment reminders, misc. (small growing all over time)

Family (larger in the beginning, constant with some fluctuations since 2000)

Friends (growing from 1995 to 2005, then decreasing but intersected with “that one friend who hates texting”, after that decreasing)

Legal telemarketers (peak in the beginning, decreasing over time)

Auto insurance scammers (a big peak between 2005 and 2012)

Other scammers (beginning in 2010, replacing the auto insurance, increasing until today)

Political (starting in 2002 and increasing since then)

Wrong numbers (constant up to 2000 and then decreasing to nearly today)