Why Do People Still Text
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I've never had a plan with texting caps. But all of them have Data Caps.
Show us where a 100% free data plan exists.I already did, TMobile offers it, my dad has it. 400Mb/s month on tablets, totally free. Works great. He can't send enough emails to touch that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I agree that it's a pain that it's a separate thing from unified communications, but what second account are you talking about? You mean the phone number? Really? Come-on. I will always want the phone number of a person I'm texting because there will probably be a point at which I want to call them, or they want to call me (and by my having their phone number in my phone allows me to have caller ID when they call). So I call bullocks on managing multiple accounts.
I email a lot of people that I don't have their personal numbers. I don't buy this argument. By far, most people who email me cannot text me nor do I want them having my personal phone numbers. Two different things, two different purposes.
I'm the same way - I too have tons of people I email but don't text or call - notice I said that I will either call or get called by that person at some point. Texting is for quick, instant communications. That's the whole point, instant.
Can email be instant? Yep, and usually pretty much is - but! I don't want my phone twerking off the desk because I'm receiving 100 emails an hour (arbitrary number) so that I make sure I get the notices from those that a) feel their message needs a faster degree of response or b) I feel their messages deserve a higher degree of notice to my attention.
Can email solve this? Sure it can! If the email client can be setup to allow me to set a white list that when a message comes from a specific address then the device is allowed to tweedle at me.. otherwise it stay silent, but I'm unaware of any mobile email client that has this feature (not that I've looked). But that doesn't solve the other half where the other side feels the message is worthy of my faster attention.
I'll pick on my brother as an example - he sends me joke emails all the time - most of which I simply delete - what if he wants to get a hold of me to go out in say 30 mins? Assuming I didn't put him on my white list in email, that message would be ignored until I checked my phone, maybe not until the next day... but a text message will get my attention now.
For true emergencies - I'm now sure how someone contacts you since you said you turned ALL notifications off on your phone. Do you just check your email every 5 mins when away from your computer? Of course with your computer, you could have a widget or the full client/webpage open and on it's own window and you'd see the message pop in.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
I've never had a plan with texting caps. But all of them have Data Caps.
Show us where a 100% free data plan exists.I already did, TMobile offers it, my dad has it. 400Mb/s month on tablets, totally free. Works great. He can't send enough emails to touch that.
How did he get it totally free? By having a contract for phones with them or otherwise buying something else with them. That's not really free.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Then for you it has. Not for most people. You are the exception not the normal case.
This seems odd. This exactly the type of case where people would tell me that but in the opposite direction.
I feel this is a common logic problem. No matter what I observe I'm the edge case. One time it's because I'm too technical. Now my circle is not technical enough.
Is it really the case that almost no one has people using text for normal communications and only for emergencies and actually use email for all normal communications? I don't feel like I know anyone in real life like this anymore. Especially no one with kids.
Texting nor emailing does not require any technical skills.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
I've never had a plan with texting caps. But all of them have Data Caps.
You'd have to use a ton of them to really know.
But "unlimited" here is misleading, is it not? Can you go anywhere and use that plan? Or just in certain places, like in the US? Email continues to be free anywhere. Sure, you need to get Internet access and that isn't necessarily free. But the point of convergence is that you carrier, all needs. As opposed to the cell phone system where you need special arrangements for each protocol.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
This is further reduced that most phones can pull contact list information from email systems that the phone attach to, centralizing the management of all of the contact information for a person - their name, phone number, email address, mailing address,etc.
True, but we are relying on more and more complicated systems to cover up the fact that fundamentally it's not doing the job we wanted it to do. People are using texting as if it is email and trying hard to make it do what email has always done.
I'm not sure I agree with that - I see texting more as a replacement for short 5-20 second phone calls. I no longer call my wife before driving home, which could lead to a 20 min conversation, instead I text her - Leaving, need me to stop for anything?
If she responds yes she's already given a list.. if she says no.. the conversation is over... and I'm now on the road.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
This is further reduced that most phones can pull contact list information from email systems that the phone attach to, centralizing the management of all of the contact information for a person - their name, phone number, email address, mailing address,etc.
True, but we are relying on more and more complicated systems to cover up the fact that fundamentally it's not doing the job we wanted it to do. People are using texting as if it is email and trying hard to make it do what email has always done.
I'm not sure I agree with that - I see texting more as a replacement for short 5-20 second phone calls.
Yep. This!!
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@scottalanmiller said:
But "unlimited" here is misleading, is it not? Can you go anywhere and use that plan? Or just in certain places, like in the US? Email continues to be free anywhere. Sure, you need to get Internet access and that isn't necessarily free. But the point of convergence is that you carrier, all needs. As opposed to the cell phone system where you need special arrangements for each protocol.
Unlimited has nothing to do with coverage. You pull out random unrelated facts trying to make an argument that doesn't hold up.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Unlimited has nothing to do with coverage. You pull out random unrelated facts trying to make an argument that doesn't hold up.
But it does. That's part of the point. You are using unlimited as if it means free or included. That you don't have to pay for it. But you are paying for access to the service and you get it curtailed. My email works without a penalty anywhere I go, anytime. It's very, very related.
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What if you could only text people while in one building? Or in one town? It's not COVERAGE that we are talking about, that's misleading, it is "unlimited." It's only unlimited in certain places. You can have coverage but have to pay per text. I know of no plan with any carrier where texting is unlimited anywhere you have coverage.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm not sure I agree with that - I see texting more as a replacement for short 5-20 second phone calls. I no longer call my wife before driving home, which could lead to a 20 min conversation, instead I text her - Leaving, need me to stop for anything?
If you don't get texts that are not for this, then I would agree. Is this all you get or do you get the regular low priority stuff too?
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@Dashrender said:
If she responds yes she's already given a list.. if she says no.. the conversation is over... and I'm now on the road.
Much like paging was designed for. I agree.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Personally text messages to from me always imply the need for a more immediate answer than an email. Texting me means - you need an answer ASAP, emailing me means - get it whenever. And of course calling me means - it's truly urgent.
Problem is, once you have people using text instead of email, that can't be the case. If it were, you'd need to answer emails all the time with the same urgency as people don't all have texting.
I appreciate that texting should mean this, but for whom is this true anymore? Only those of us who don't talk over text anymore and who is that? It can't be both. Not unless you become completely beholded to the device.
I don't hold conversations over text - more than 3 text in one direction and I convert to either a phone call or real IM. Phone if I'm not at my computer, and IM if I am at my computer. And these days, I really don't get many texts because I use FB chat 80% of the time anyway...
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller it's vendor neutral & free for everyone (at least up here, I can't recall a smartphone plan that does not include unlimited texts at minimum)
Is phone service up there free? I thought it was owned by just a couple of carriers and cost as much as it does down here. How do you, without a phone plan, access SMS?
Google Voice
Google offers free SMS? Okay, I can see that. So you can sign into a browser at the library and retrieve SMS messages that are saved up? Or you can have it on a laptop at home and send/receive SMS?
Yes in Google Hangouts
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@Dashrender said:
I don't hold conversations over text - more than 3 text in one direction and I convert to either a phone call or real IM. Phone if I'm not at my computer, and IM if I am at my computer. And these days, I really don't get many texts because I use FB chat 80% of the time anyway...
So you don't have the issue of people not having access to those other things? That was a key reason that people had said they were using texting in the first place, the lack of Internet on one side or the other.
Why use texts at all if both sides already have the other mechanisms?
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@Dashrender said:
Yes in Google Hangouts
Interesting. I was not aware of this. That's a "nice" feature. So it just shows up like any other Google IM channel but to a phone number rather than to a person?
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@scottalanmiller For the most part, yes. I have a browser addon (I could also do this through Hangouts website) that I can see and respond to any SMS message that comes in via my Google Voice number. I can respond from any device that or browser that has my Google account attached to it.
I don't even give out my real cell phone number any more.
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Also, for traveling, texting often requires getting a new number, and therefore a new identity, in different countries. Texting for people outside of the US can require quite a bit of extra management.
I have friend who travel and email and Facebook work but texting is something that they lost. They were texters before, then suddenly everyone had to figure out how to reach them. Texting, I feel, is less consistent especially in times of emergency.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
I get unlimited texts and calls no unlimited data. Text is much similar and easier than email, and is much more instant, email servers have delays and emails aren't checked as often by most.
I've measured SMS delay at roughly three hours between carriers, two people sitting at the same table in the same restaurant able to send emails "instantly" while waiting for the SMS to go through. Many times, in Dallas right in the heart of the metro.
Both have the potential for huge delay. This is actually a reason that I hate texting, it gives end users the impression of being instant but no guarantee. Email people understand is likely instant, but there is no guarantee.
The email thing isn't true - When email is slow for whatever reason, my boss is up my keyster wondering why her normally instant email isn't instant.
I agree that people believe that texting is instant and somehow guaranteed, but they also believe the same with email. Heck - I remember back in dial-up days having email conversations with people that were long distant to me - before IM was around (we weren't on the AOL or other networks, just plain internet dial-up).
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
It still does mean that. that's why you don't text everyone you email most things and text for more personal and more urgent things.
Except the only people who text me, at least, don't use email at all. So everything has moved to text. Anyone who has and uses email knows that that gets me faster, more reliably and with more urgency.
really? if those people are sending things only via text to you, perhaps that's because a) they never use email or b) they don't have enough to say to bother composing an email - again that believe that emails are more formal - look at Matt's example above.
