Why Do People Still Text
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First world?
I can't get internet access in about 30% of the UK.I love text. Fast. Reliable. And I don't get any spam. The whole world e-mails me (well, not quite the whole world, but it sometimes feels like it), but only people who are important to me text me.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
First world?
I can't get internet access in about 30% of the UK.I love text. Fast. Reliable. And I don't get any spam. The whole world e-mails me (well, not quite the whole world, but it sometimes feels like it), but only people who are important to me text me.
We have the opposite issue in the US. Much of the US does not have cell coverage. And email is async so whenever you do get coverage it sends and receives, texting (at least no device I've seen) does this.
When you say access in only 30% of the UK, do you mean open countryside? Because the nice thing about email is that whether you are on a landline, wifi, in a hotel, on the cell, etc. you can send and receive. With texts you are limited to only being able to be contacted when the physical device works and when it has signal. Email I can "always" find a workaround to make sure I am getting.
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@dafyre said:
Do you consider things like Google Voice (which has now merged with Hangouts) to be texting? or is that messaging?
Texting is a specific technology, the SMS protocol.
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@dafyre said:
Google Voice also solves a lot of the problems of being tied to a single device (not neccessariliy a single phone number, though!). I currently have 3 PCs, 2 Tablets, and a phone that all get messages to my Google Voice / Hangouts account.
Google Voice is a completely third technology with no relationship to email or SMS. Much like What's App.
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While texting has been around longer than Siri has, Those with the ability to use Siri can have it send the text, so no typing.
That isn't practical for all - I do realize that. My AT&T plan has been the same plan for more than 10 years - I'm grandfathered into their true original unlimited plan. Texting costs me nothing more, and I roll something on the order of 500 minutes a month (last check I had 3000 rolled over minutes,... which do expire...)
You can text someone (most of the time) if their carrier allow via email. Google Voice (GV) has an iPhone app, but also the web access. I can send as if it was a normal phone, from my cell or from my PC.
I took a weekend out, and didn't have AT&T service.. but the Verizon hot spot did have spotty coverage. I was able to send a text via GV if I sat the hot spot right.
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@scottalanmiller said:
We have the opposite issue in the US. Much of the US does not have cell coverage. And email is async so whenever you do get coverage it sends and receives, texting (at least no device I've seen) does this.
When you say access in only 30% of the UK, do you mean open countryside?
Cities as well. There are parts of central London where I can get decent cell coverage but can't get any 3G signal. I find 3G access very flaky, at least with my carrier (Vodafone). I find text generally more reliable.
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Texting is Free in the US on most phone plans. Data is not.
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@anonymous said:
Texting is Free in the US on most phone plans. Data is not.
At the time of the writing, texting was not free on most and especially not on the largest. Most plans that have free text also have free data. Data is now free even without a plan for some devices (iPads on Tmobile get data for free, for example.) Internet is available far and wide for free (libraries, cafes, McDonald's, etc.) but nowhere is cell phone service free.
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Also, I was told that in the US is the only place you pay for incoming messages?
That incoming messages are free everywhere else in the world?
If this is true, then there is no forced costs, just don't reply
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Cities as well. There are parts of central London where I can get decent cell coverage but can't get any 3G signal. I find 3G access very flaky, at least with my carrier (Vodafone). I find text generally more reliable.
Ah, you mean just while on the phone. Yes, that makes sense. You should try TMobile, I had great coverage over London and I walked like six miles across it with nothing but my phone
Having text as an emergency backup makes sense. But using it as the primary communications method is what I really mean. Since with email, even if you don't have service, you still get and send emails as service goes in and out. And at least here, I don't need 3G for email to work.
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@anonymous said:
Also, I was told that in the US is the only place you pay for incoming messages?
That's likely true. It's a really important thing to consider that in America people are encouraged (or were) to use texting because if some people did it, it financially forced everyone to pay for plans to keep from getting billed for things that they could not disable. That's what happened to us. Other people kept sending us billable messages until we paid for a plan to stop it. It's literally a form of socialized extortion.
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@anonymous said:
That incoming messages are free everywhere else in the world?
If this is true, then there is no forced costs, just don't reply
As long as you don't have an American phone, which most people here do.
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@scottalanmiller said:
At the time of the writing, texting was not free on most and especially not on the largest.
Verzion, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint all have free texting..... o_0
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My parents have flip phones, so I still need texting for that.....
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@anonymous said:
My parents have flip phones, so I still need texting for that.....
My dad does too, but he doesn't have good service so it is still email that reaches him reliably.
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@anonymous said:
Verzion, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint all have free texting..... o_0
They did not at the time of the article.
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The ubiquity of unlimited talk and text is a new thing.
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@anonymous said:
@scottalanmiller said:
At the time of the writing, texting was not free on most and especially not on the largest.
Verzion, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint all have free texting..... o_0
Verizon has free data now too, when texting went free, so did email on most carriers. TMobile remains the only one to have actually free (you don't pay anything) Internet. No one is offering text for free. Internet remains the free choice. Texting is now cheap and included with voice plans, as is Internet. But texting is not included with data plans.
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@anonymous said:
My parents have flip phones, so I still need texting for that.....
Do they keep their phones with them at all times, even when home? I suppose if they don't have a computer and email that would make sense. I've not seen many people using flip phones as their primary gateway to the world in the US. In the third world I understand that non-Internet phones are common and the only standard thing. SMS is key there, but they went to SMS while waiting for the Internet (which isn't there yet) rather than going to it after having had the Internet.
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I recognize the need to text people because other people only text. I'm not suggesting that many of us are not trapped with it. I have it and use it because lots of people in the family just don't check their email or have email (seriously, I feel like it is the dark ages, I've had email since I was 18 and before I worked in IT - everyone I know of my age had email just from going to college in that era) but my question is really.... at the base of the pyramid, what is making the people for whom there is no text dependency choose texting instead of cheaper, easier, more reliable communications methods that replaced texting decades ago?
