Back when I was growing up, the stereotypical teenager would spend hours on the phone. That was never me.
I never really loved speaking on the phone — even with my friends. Although I eventually learned how to manage calls better, they can still be very draining for me.
If you feel the same, you’re not alone.
Communication studies show that ADHD adults avoid phone calls at a higher rate than do neurotypical people.
It’s yet another life task that hits different for people with ADHD.
Here are 5 reasons why phone calls can be cognitively taxing for people with ADHD.
(1) Social Anxiety
This reason often shows up even in neurotypical people who resist making calls: the fear of disturbing people with a phone call. We don’t want to be seen as a burden.
For people with ADHD, even an innocuous statement of unavailability — “I’m sorry I can’t talk right now” — can land as a perceived slight or rejection that is incongruous with its intention.
What other people perceive as a pin prick, ADHDers feel as a knife wound.
(2) No Visual Cues
In a face-to-face conversation, the words are only a small part of the communication. There is also tone of voice, body language, eye movements, and hand gesturing.
Phone conversations give you words and tone of voice, but they don’t give you any of the visual cues.
Because we often listen better when we’re not making eye contact and when we have freedom to move around, you might think phone conversations work better for people with ADHD.
After all, when I’m on the phone, the other person can’t see where I’m looking or that I’m moving around, or folding my laundry.
In this regard, the phone can have advantage. But if not managed well, this advantage is offset by the challenges.
Without the visual cues, we don’t know whether your pause means you’ve completed a thought and it’s safe for us to chime in, or whether you’re just taking a brief breath in the middle of your idea.
We can’t see the way your body reacts to what we say, leaving us blind to the impact of what we’ve shared.
The lack of visual cues can often leave us wondering if the other person was really hearing us and took in what we said.
We are also more likely to get distracted without the visual of the other person in front of us.
Staying focused and attentive isn’t impossible — but our brains work harder, leaving us more fatigued.
(3) Background Noise
Unless both people are in quiet places, a phone call is likely to have background noise. The din of a cafe, the sounds of screaming children, televisions, traffic.
The ADHD brain must work much harder to differentiate these background noises from the primary speaker. Sudden noises in the background — the blaring of sirens, intercom announcements — can be jarring to our nervous systems, putting us into fight-or-flight mode without warning.
(4) Confusion About Silence
On the other hand, sudden silence can create confusion that hijacks our systems. You put yourself on mute to spare your conversation partner the loud noise in the background, but the person with ADHD is suddenly wondering whether the line went dead or if you hung up on them.
(5) Processing Delays
ADHD impacts executive functions like planning, organization, and working memory, making real-time conversation management stressful.
We can be slower to process information, increasing the risk of information overload. If the conversation takes an unexpected turn, we are left unprepared. We are more likely to forget our talking points (if we had them), and hang up realizing we never said what we needed to say.
Not Impossible, Just Taxing
All of these of these factors cause our brains to work harder than neurotypical brains work in the same situation. That said, with some good strategies and practice, phone calls can become less draining.
We’ll cover that in a separate post.
Do you find phone calls draining? Share your experience in the comments.
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