Crikey. I was going to ask where are you from/where have you lived for the last 20 years, but now I realise that the more salient question is how old are you? I’m 48, so perhaps it’s a generational thing. (I constantly read that gen-Z recoil from speaking on phones like it’s cryptonite. They’d rather send emojis.)
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All the Zoomers whom I know never set up their voicemail greetings, almost never answer incoming calls, and are VERY uncomfortable placing calls. Advice articles such as this one at wikiHow have become necessary.
Sad, but hilarious, too!
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I am a millennial from a small country in southern Europe, but age doesn’t play that much role in this. My grandpa was the first one to have a Bosch mobile phone in 1999 but he also never received a voicemail.
It’s just that carriers have never advertised that feature, 1999 to 2012 it was calls/sms and 2012 they went all-in Data packages.
I have lived in 3 other countries, and have had sim card from like 10 but I still wouldn’t know what a voice mail notification looks like 
p.s I like calls myself
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Have you never left a voicemail either?
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TIL that ‘Zoomers’ = gen-Z: An evolved species of human that have traded talking for texting.
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Never. Anywhere I’ve lived if the number I was calling was unreachable, you would get an audio telling you “the person you’re trying to reach is not connected to the network”. And that was it. When they were reachable, they would receive an automatic sms “this number tried to call you”. And they would call you back.
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So, if you tried calling someone multiple times and never got through or they didn’t answer, you would send a text message rather than leave a voicemail? If what you say is true for others where you live, that sounds like a strange social phenomenon bordering on an aversion. It is rare.
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It’s the same for me. I’m a millennial as well and have never gotten a voicemail on my mobile phone. I do remember though that when we only had a landline phone, the voicemail feature was well used on it. I’m also not sure, if it’s a country-specific or generational thing.
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There was no option to leave a voicemail. So you would just sent an sms if it was important, or wait them to call you back when their phone is on / connected to a network (because they would receive an automatic sms for missed calls).
I don’t think it’s rare, I remember reading on a Reddit topic about this. It seems voicemail in most of Europe wasn’t ever a thing.
To add more to this, Voice Message on the other hand are pretty popular. Since Whatsapp included Voice messages people use them quite a lot. But this is for family,friends & colleagues not for strangers.
@aerdureth I think it used to be country-specific thing, and now it’s because of generation differences.
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I believe it’s a personal thingn not age or area related, most people I know don’t like it. I believe it’s related to the slow awful robot voice “You have. 1 new message. First new message.” painful painful.
I have often called the phone company and had voicemail disabled, esp when I had robo calls in chinese Everyday, that was the nail in the coffin for me with voicemail.
It’s like I love having a doorbell, but I had to remove it once Amazon delivery people began ringing my bell 17 times a day whenever someone else in my building had a package.
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Well, well, well, it seems that network carriers in southern Europe operated quite differently to northern Europe. I gather that if European operators supported it, typically they charged to retrieve voicemail. There are exceptions, but on the whole in the UK for a long time now, it’s uncommon to be charged to check voicemail. So, perhaps it’s a case of corporations shaping behaviour en masse. Baaaah. We’re sheep.
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Millennial from Northern Europe here. In a personal capacity? Yes, this is what I and almost everyone I know around my age would do. The exception is perhaps my 1-2 friends who work in Sales and spend all day on the phone (and love talking 
). In a professional capacity I would likely leave a voicemail on second attempt.
…I do however tend to agree it’s a strange social phenomenon bordering on aversion 
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On the voicemail topic, can confirm that Eastern Europe is in no-voicemail boat as well. I’m from Ukraine, never used one, never got one, only saw people using those in the movies… So the first time I had to deal with voicemails was 3 years ago when I moved to Germany – and, ouch, it is not a great thing if you do not speak the local language (during a call I can communicate the fact that I do not speak the language, message I can translate and even reply to with the help of translators and dictionaries, but people leaving voicemail and assuming I got the information is a nightmare in this scenario). However, moved to Israel 1 year ago, and back to no-voicemail as no one uses those here either.
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Thank you, @aleksander. USA callers left (recorded) an estimated 464 MILLION voicemail messages per DAY in 2023. Voicemail remains a telephonic staple here in the USA. I believe that Mudita can easily enable the [1] key for it in MuditaOS K, just as the developers of Google Android, BasicOS, CalyxOS, and LineageOS have done!
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