When I visited the Panther Valley recently, some friends and I agreed that one of the most annoying disruptions is the unsolicited and unwanted marketing call.

When I gave up my home telephone about three years ago to rely exclusively on my cellphone, I anticipated that these robocalls were going to be a distant memory. Obviously, I had another think coming.

It used to be that you could identify marketing calls because they came from 800 or 888 numbers, but now they have become more sophisticated in that they masquerade as someone in your area code. This makes you think that someone nearby may be trying to reach you.

It took me a couple of these calls to get wise to the sophistication of telemarketers, so I decided that unless I recognize the number of the caller I will not pick up. In every case, the telemarketer did not leave a message — another tipoff that it was not someone you knew.

Once I even received a call from my own number. I might be getting a little forgetful now and then, but I certainly knew that I had not called myself.

Several friends who are more technologically savvy about these matters said I did the right thing by not answering, because this is just another telemarketer ploy to get me to pick up to hear a pitch for a “dream vacation,” a way to save thousands of dollars or any of the thousand-and-one other come-ons that are intended to separate me from my hard-earned cash.

It is scant comfort knowing that I am not alone.

Last year, Americans received more than 48 billion robocalls, or 147 for every man, woman and child in the nation, according to YouMail, an organization dedicated to stopping unwanted calls. This was 57 percent more than the previous year.

The drastic uptick didn’t come out of the blue; the spike occurred because of a court ruling requiring the Federal Communications Commission to remove a crucial definition of auto-dialing that was considered too broad and restrictive.

Consumer advocates had warned that this was going to happen, especially since the federal court ruling reversed the definition of an auto-dialer and gave the FCC the authority to come up with new guidance.

My friends and I are really angry about the number of unwanted calls we receive. All of us are on both the state and federal “do not call” lists, but it doesn’t seem to matter. There were more than 5 million complaints, including mine, to the “do not call” registries in 2018.

Comparing the “do not call” list to what happens when water is poured into a sieve struck me as the perfect analogy.

Newton’s third law of motion seems to capture perfectly what has befallen us as technology has become ever more sophisticated: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. While we enjoy the fruits offered us by advances in technology, we pay certain penalties — robocalls, social media attacks on us and our privacy, etc.

Because we are so reliant on our smartphones, robocallers disrupt our lives at inopportune times — during meals, while we take a nap, during religious services and during business meetings.

Virtually every member of Congress is committed to helping consumers deal with these intrusions, and while some regulations have been imposed, it is obviously not helping.

Tracking robocalls is next to impossible, because they travel through a dizzying series of networks, making it difficult to pinpoint their origin, so this enables some of these companies to sidestep state and federal rules and regulations.

Late last year, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai sent a notice to more than a dozen phone providers, demanding that they adopt a workable call authentication system to combat illegal caller ID spoofing. Pai warned that the FCC will act if it doesn’t detect progress by Dec. 31.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com