Why are ringtones not interesting anymore?
Back in the Nokia days until the early smartphone days, custom phone ringtones were popular things to have.
I think the main reasons were distinguishability in crowded places and the demand for individualisation. I believe they were also one of the first digital assets, that were sold.
Nowadays, most people seem to have settled on either the vintage phone sound, or the default factory setting.
Which leads to indistinguishability and homogenisation.
What are your thoughts on the reasons for that?
Myself and everybody around me keep their phones on silent/vibrate.
If your phone or computer makes noise in a public setting, I assume you have either no manners or self-awareness, or that you don't know how to use your device.
In my groups (gen z), I do not know a single person that even makes calls, ever.
Phones are on silent/dnd.
If you ever get a "real" phone call (not via discord, whatsapp, etc) it's either something you are explicitly expecting unavoidably (you would try as hard as possible to get them to email you or text you) or it's a scammer.
Here's my take:
Ringtones were never really interesting. When I got my first cell phone it was fun choosing from the limited set of included ringtones, and my friend had one where we could program our own monophonic songs, which was cool. But it was just novelty, like changing your desktop wallpaper. And like desktop wallpaper, anything too complex or interesting can become an annoying distraction.
The only people with phones not on silent are the ones that can’t read the room in my experience.
Invariably also same crowd using laptop speakers in an open plan.
In my experience, interesting ringtones are mostly just used for alarms & reminders. A classic being Chop Suey by System of a Down as your wake up alarm.
I agree the most likely reason is that voice calls have become much more rare. But, a novelty-wearing-off effect may also be in play. When multiple fonts first became available, lots of people used lots of fonts-- the ransom note effect. Today there are more fonts than ever, but the vast majority of text is in the default proportional and monospace fonts.
Apple has not chosen to bless the plebs with this functionality, so it does not exist.
My friend had a phone during the early 2000s that allowed you to input notes to make your own ringtone. That was a unique feature. I can't remember the phone though. This was pre-android and maybe even monochrome.
I went through the 'pager era' in the 70s and 80s. It was always most annoying when in a group and a pager went off. Whose was it? We would all be reaching for our pagers to see it it was us.
The same thing happened when 'the small-brick' mobile phones came in around the late 80s to early 90s.
Finally, we eventually got phones with selectable ringtones around the mid 90s. I have always since then used a personal ringtone that is different from anybody else's. And no, I don't put it on 'silent' because a lot of the time I don't have it in my pocket.
The only ringtones I hear are "interesting" ones. The Star Trek (TOS) theme from one colleague, going off whenever his wife (usually) calls. A coworker who has custom songs for various people. I only very rarely hear any other kind of ringtone. Everyone else seems to have done like me, switched their device to silent/vibrate.
In my experience, ringtones are usually going to disturb some other soundtrack I've got on. Movies, music, ham radio, etc. So vibrate & light screen is my usual.
I do like playing with them for things like alarms and specific callers though, and sometimes make new ones using vintage keyboards (r/cheapkeys).
On iOS, I could not figure out after a day of searching how to use an mp3 as a ringtone without having a Mac and some sort of iTunes sync. That is why my ringtone is the borjng default. My android ringtone was wonderful imho
The default factory in case of some devices is a good example of status symbol
The powers-that-be decided that file management is a desktop-class feature.
I hardly call anyone anymore and I answer calls even more rarely.