Is it rude to call people directly now?

Has the advent of the likes of Microsoft Teams made us fearful of calling people directly.

Back in the day, if you wanted to know what someone was up to, you didn’t stalk their calendar, you picked up the phone and called. Simple. Then mobile phones arrived, and we still called, just with a little hesitation because landline-to-cell charges felt like repayments on a mortgage and you knew the accountant would be auditing every call.

Fast forward to now: Microsoft Teams. We’ve got green dots, red dots, purple dot, all of which are basically traffic lights for humans. Green means “free,” red means “busy,” and if you’re in a call, you’ve shut off the world. So, in theory, we kind of know what people are doing. Well, at least we think we do. They could simply be placing something heavy on their control key to keep their status green or having their spouse wiggle their mouse when they’re down the pub.

Yet somehow, instead of just calling, we now send messages like:
“Are you free for a call?”
“Can you talk now?”