I hate the phone. I only ever happily call or answer a call from DM or DH. Everyone else gets voice mail and a text back from me (unless it's the HV or dentist, bank etc - in which case they will have to wait until I have amassed the courage to call back.. in fact, the HV is still waiting to hear back from me right now, a week after she first called 
).
I much prefer texting and e-mail (you can construct what you're saying with thought and time - not being put on the spot, like with the phone). English is my second language, which also has an effect (when I get nervous I forget words and stutter). Additionally, I find I have a very hard time understanding accents (Indian, broad Irish, Glaswegian, etc.) on the phone and am too embarrassed to say "excuse me, what was that you said, please" for the tenth time, so just agree with whatever they say and end up with a new phone contract, or something else (happened twice), I didn't want, just to get rid of the callers 
. I hate how they try to push you stuff at any given moment and it's not always clear whether it's free or a paid service or what. Gets me so nervous!
So, I try to get DH to call people like banks and phone provider for me. It's quite embarrassing and often DH can't speak for me for legal reasons, so will have to hand me the phone back for at least the confirmation of personal details, which is bad enough..
DM used to call people for me, so I guess I was one of those kids the OP about teenagers not being able to sort out their own stuff and having interfering mums, was about.
I have had several jobs where phone contact (sometimes even cold calling 
) was an integral part of it. I felt suicidal every morning. Didn't dream about ever ignoring the phone, though. So had to pull through with every ounce of internal strength. I'm clearly too conscientious for my own good. What these jobs taught me, is that I CAN make and take calls, but hate it and stress is sometimes off the charts, so I now choose not to - if I can avoid it.
Despite having 3 uni degrees, I used to dream about working in a supermarket store room at night or somewhere where there would be NO contact with ANYONE, except peers. I now happily run a small (well, it's a start-up) craft business from home, using e-mail for my contacts.