Why Do People Still Text
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I really wish I could switch to T-mobile but people on their plans in my area are the people who never have cell reception.
With texting I don't need to know the email account people check most often, or decide which account to email. It's also guaranteed to pop up on their phone, while some people never set up email access on their phone for whatever reason. When they do, the email apps are clunkier than the built-in messaging apps because they have to provide a bunch of extra features.
The biggest thing IMO is that there's a much better signal to noise ratio with texts. If I text someone I'm pretty sure they will see & read the message within 24 hours. Messages won't get lost in a sea of newsletters, spam, or anything like that. In contrast, there's a growing UX movement amongst mobile email apps to help people cut through email clutter and read what's actually important in their inbox.
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@scottalanmiller said:
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.
Yes, these people, where you happen to find yourself these days, are the major exception to the texting norm. The US doesn't have this problem as a general rule - you can take your cell phone with you pretty much anywhere in the country, and as long as you can make calls you can get and send text messages.
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@scottalanmiller said:
If I receive texts that are not alerts, I must either block people or lose my alerting capabilities. It's the reception that causes the problem.
I find it hard to believe that a guy with your technical proclivity has not yet found a way to make it better than that!
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@MattSpeller said:
I find it hard to believe that a guy with your technical proclivity has not yet found a way to make it better than that!
Not without filtering out family.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
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.
Yes, these people, where you happen to find yourself these days, are the major exception to the texting norm. The US doesn't have this problem as a general rule - you can take your cell phone with you pretty much anywhere in the country, and as long as you can make calls you can get and send text messages.
Yes, if we are assuming a US-centric world, SMS works relatively well. But it always comes with big assumptions like you aren't leaving the country, have reception at home, have reception at work, are allowed to have a phone in those places, your device doesn't break or die, that you always have your device, etc. People using text messaging - how are you not tied to your devices in a way that those just on email are not?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
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.
Maybe, but that's my point... why? Are we just saying that end users are so confused that we should give up and there is no helping them and they will communicate badly? I get that, I understand. I'm not saying we can fix the world, but if we don't try it gets worse more quickly, right?
This is something I struggle with. I feel like it is condescending if I agree to this being the reason, that I'm giving users too little credit and it is wrong to do so. I keep fighting to find another reason.
What are those who are only texting you, texting you about? Is email the solution they really should be using? or is it better suited to IM? Until MS Send came along I would never consider (today) to use email to hold a give and take conversation - it's just the wrong platform. MS Send solves that by making the interface simplier - Hell I really do hope they come out with a desktop client AND bring it to Exchange 2016 (I'm sure I'll be using that before we move to O365)... I love the idea - having a conversation with my boss that's all saved to email but done through an IM client would be awesome!
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@Dashrender said:
What are those who are only texting you, texting you about? Is email the solution they really should be using? or is it better suited to IM?
Using anything that uses the Internet is fine. Except weird crap like Whats App that is proprietary and locks you down to the device anyway - mimicking bad behaviour for no reason.
I'm not arguing email vs. IM, I'm arguing everything vs. text.
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@Dashrender said:
Until MS Send came along I would never consider (today) to use email to hold a give and take conversation - it's just the wrong platform. MS Send solves that by making the interface simplier
It doesn't make it easier, it makes it seem easier. You could do this before with other clients. I'm undecided if I actually find it easier than normal mail interface or if it is purely mental.
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@Dashrender said:
I love the idea - having a conversation with my boss that's all saved to email but done through an IM client would be awesome!
We were doing this with Zimbra around 2007.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
By free I assume you mean the use of someone else's wifi connection, not a cellular data connection.
I've listed this caveat before. And I totally understand that it is apples or oranges. BUT.... with convergence you have to assume that you will, one way or another, attempt to have Internet access. That might be a horribly wrong assumption, but that is the assumption. That by going to a single universal platform you eliminate the need to get many platforms AND the platform is vendorless and generic. So I can use any Internet, anywhere to get what I need. I can borrow someone's phone, computer or wifi... all will let me retrieve my email. The email itself costs nothing, the platform is universal and equitable.
With an SMS I cannot do that (unless I hijack it to non-SMS like Apple and Google are doing - which is an attempt to reconverge a non-convergent technology.) If a message goes to SMS and my phone is gone, destroyed, number changed, out of service, etc. that's it. I can't switch to another medium to get that message. I can't borrow something to get to it. I am carrier dependent, service dependent, number dependent and device dependent.
Sure, but you are with a phone call as well. But from a purely messaging standpoint I see what you're getting at. The question is, does it matter? Like the phone call I'm guessing most people don't believe that a text message will be saved by the receiver for very long, or in general used as an archive (mainly for the reasons you've mentioned already), so it's not like the average user worries about losing their SMS messages, they are probably much more concerned about the lost photos.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
really? if those people are sending things only via text to you, perhaps that's because a) they never use email or b)
Except for the teens, they all had email and switched off of it because it "wasn't cool" or whatever. I've actually been told "wasn't cool" as a reason before.
Email clients, especially on phones, haven't been great - changes in view to conversation mode definitely improved things greatly - replying and reading responses look more like SMS messages and flow better, but that's what 2-3 years old at best?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
By free I assume you mean the use of someone else's wifi connection, not a cellular data connection.
I've listed this caveat before. And I totally understand that it is apples or oranges. BUT.... with convergence you have to assume that you will, one way or another, attempt to have Internet access. That might be a horribly wrong assumption, but that is the assumption. That by going to a single universal platform you eliminate the need to get many platforms AND the platform is vendorless and generic. So I can use any Internet, anywhere to get what I need. I can borrow someone's phone, computer or wifi... all will let me retrieve my email. The email itself costs nothing, the platform is universal and equitable.
With an SMS I cannot do that (unless I hijack it to non-SMS like Apple and Google are doing - which is an attempt to reconverge a non-convergent technology.) If a message goes to SMS and my phone is gone, destroyed, number changed, out of service, etc. that's it. I can't switch to another medium to get that message. I can't borrow something to get to it. I am carrier dependent, service dependent, number dependent and device dependent.
Sure, but you are with a phone call as well. But from a purely messaging standpoint I see what you're getting at. The question is, does it matter? Like the phone call I'm guessing most people don't believe that a text message will be saved by the receiver for very long, or in general used as an archive (mainly for the reasons you've mentioned already), so it's not like the average user worries about losing their SMS messages, they are probably much more concerned about the lost photos.
Oh that's a different concern, not what I meant. I mean if I'm sending critical info to someone's SMS, they might never get it. It's ephemeral. Only for things that are transient. Like what if there was a big emergency and you needed to fly to California to deal with it. But your phone was broken when that happened. No matter what, you are going to be delayed in getting that message. But if it was an email you can always just go find a way to get the message. If it is SMS, you might never get it but the sending think that you did.
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@Dashrender said:
Email clients, especially on phones, haven't been great - changes in view to conversation mode definitely improved things greatly - replying and reading responses look more like SMS messages and flow better, but that's what 2-3 years old at best?
I've had that since 2006. Blackberrys had that long before I was using it. Email was effectively instant and worked as easy as texting does today. I went to a Motorola Q in 2007, worked like that too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
Everyone who drives a car should drive a fuel efficient, small, built for A to B car. I feel like that's the argument you're in here.
This is not a comparison. The issue is that when you text people you do it to other people. If this was about HOW you read your communications it would not matter. It is about how you force others to communicate.
If you email them, are you not forcing them to use email to communicate with them?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Assuming you have a mobile phone with them. 400 Mb a month?
My father does not. I'm not aware of that being a limitation.
really? So I can go to a t-Mobile store and buy an Android tablet from them ( I assume I must at least do that) that is cellular enabled, and I can get free 400 MB a month wireless data? Damn I'm going to have to look into that.
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@Dashrender said:
If you email them, are you not forcing them to use email to communicate with them?
That's completely valid. Except that having email is optional. My text is not. I got texts on an account that I didn't even know how it and I was charged for it. I'm sure this happened to tons of people when texting became suddenly in vogue. Nearly everyone has phones, people just started texting even knowing that almost no one had free texts originally. The text functionality was turned on sometimes without people even being told or could not be disabled.
So only sort of. They obviously can and do opt not to have email. It isn't tied to some other service. But text you can force onto a device that they have for another purpose.
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@Dashrender said:
really? So I can go to a t-Mobile store and buy an Android tablet from them ( I assume I must at least do that) that is cellular enabled, and I can get free 400 MB a month wireless data? Damn I'm going to have to look into that.
I think so. We got my dad an iPad from TMobile and have the 400MB/month plan for free. It's perfect for him and works in his house where his SMS isn't reliable. Helps him contact us when traveling because of the ways that I described how email keeps trying when SMS does not.
Now maybe I'm wrong and he might be associated with our TMobile plans so that he gets it for free. But they list the service for free and we got it for him with that assumption. It's not a free add on to our plan. It's a plan of its own.
Might be iPad only, but I assume Android counts too.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller While I agree that yes, everything could be sent by email, is there no room for another option?
Everyone who drives a car should drive a fuel efficient, small, built for A to B car. I feel like that's the argument you're in here.
I have a Big truck
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@Dashrender said:
really? So I can go to a t-Mobile store and buy an Android tablet from them ( I assume I must at least do that) that is cellular enabled, and I can get free 400 MB a month wireless data? Damn I'm going to have to look into that.
Chances are once you do that you'll realize how good the TMobile plan is and switch to them. Which is the point of the freebie service
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Though I really do like IM way better than texting too - for all the reasons Scott has mentioned before - the draw back of course is you must be online to use it, where some phones will hold a text message until you get back in range, others won't.
I assume that that is a carrier thing? All phones hold texts, I hope, once they have received them.
I mean when trying to send - I've had some phones that will hold the outgoing text until it makes a connection to the cellular network, I've had others the just reject you if offline and won't retry (though they give you an option to return most of the time).
