The Problem of Americans Hanging Up the Phone Too Quickly

I have always wondered about this.

When watching American movies, don't you frequently see scenes where someone hangs up the phone with a click as soon as they finish saying what they want to say? They hang up with a click without saying any parting words like "see you later" or "bye."

Isn't that too fast to hang up?
Do Americans really cut off phone calls like that in real life?

First, I wanted to show you an easy-to-understand example. When I searched for one, I found a video that was exactly what I meant.

Everyone in the video brilliantly hangs up the phone the moment they finish saying what they want to say.

In my experience, you always say a parting greeting when hanging up the phone. I thought that was the case in every country, not just Japan.

To elaborate, in Japan, phone etiquette is quite detailed, and there is even an unspoken rule that you should wait for the person of higher status to hang up first. Depending on your relationship with the other person, hanging up unilaterally might be considered rude. In any case, when ending a call, you usually confirm with each other by saying something like, "Well, I guess I'll let you go now..." before putting down the receiver.

From that perspective, the way Americans hang up the phone seems a bit abrupt.

Even without a word for goodbye, I could understand it if they used phrases like these. It would convey that they are trying to end the conversation.

However, in the video I mentioned at the beginning, there are several scenes where they put down the receiver without saying anything, even when it wouldn't be strange for the other person to respond. Could it be that in some cases, the other person is desperately trying to say something on the other end, but it just isn't being heard?

Since I started living in America, I make and receive phone calls on a daily basis.

What I have learned through my own experience is that in real life, people don't hang up as quickly as they do in movies. Especially when talking to someone for the first time, they are naturally a bit more polite. There are proper phrases to conclude the conversation.

And more often than not, they wait to hear the reply I give, such as "Bye!" or "You, too!" before hanging up.

However, with people you are close to, it gets a bit closer to the situation in the video I mentioned earlier.

Let me use my American husband as an example.

He never hangs up on me without saying goodbye. But the timing of when he hangs up is clearly fast.

If I respond to his words at a normal speed, the call is already disconnected by the time I reply with "bye!" If I really want my husband to hear my "bye!", I have no choice but to answer him immediately.

By the way, when my husband hangs up the phone with his mother, he says bye and hangs up at that same high speed. I have seen many times where his mother was about to say something right after, but he hung up at that exact moment.

“Your mom was saying something. You hang up too fast.”

Even when I admonish him like that, my husband's answer is this:

“No, I already said 'bye,' so it's fine. If I waited for her to say something else after that, I'd never be able to hang up the phone, would I?”

Americans (or at least my husband) are dry. Refreshingly dry. By the way, in cases like this, my husband doesn't call his mother back, and she doesn't call him back either. I guess this is fine for both of them.

In short, it comes down to this.

If you think of conversation as playing catch, his style is to throw the last ball and be done with it. He is not in a position to wait for the ball to come back from the other person. In fact, the moment the ball leaves his hand, the game of catch is over. He turns his back and walks away without even watching to see if the other person catches it, let alone caring if they throw it back.

A typical Japanese person might think this:

But please rest assured. There is likely no ill intent. It's just that the stickiness when parting ways is different. The way we Japanese part ways is a bit clingy, like the humidity of summer. Americans have a continental climate. They are dry.

At the beginning of the video I mentioned earlier, these words were displayed:

Conclusion: Americans hang up the phone quickly. Not as fast as in the movies, but still fast.

Thank you for reading this far.

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