Why Do People Still Text
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jmoore said in Why Do People Still Text:
Probably just depends on how others you usually communicate with use that certain technology in the end.
That's the key thing, with communications, you are often "stuck" with the choices of the least capable, least thinking party in a scenario. If you can convince grandparents to only talk on Facebook, suddenly everyone has to have Facebook because that's what your grandparents use and you can't change them no matter how good or bad it is.
This is how texting seems to have taken hold. There was a huge marketing push to get certain groups to use it and force charges on people who didn't want it and couldn't turn it off, so those people were forced to pay for it, and they've continued to encourage it as a lock in mechanism.
Why are we in the US so stuck on this, when places like Brazil rely 90%+ on things like What'sapps?
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jim9500 said in Why Do People Still Text:
Do I expect an 8 - 24 hour response
email
Do I expect a 5 min - 2hr response
text
Do I need to talk to someone this instant
call
Do I want to see if casual acquaintances want drinks
Social media message
I feel like the platforms are used to communicate unspoken expectations.
This is why I like Slack. It fits for them all plus more in the enterprise. Everyone has it, so you don't need to worry about that part of it.
not everyone has it. and I hate slack, just like I hate discord. All those channels to watch, just to much noise - and I thought FB had a tonne of shite on it! it ain't got shit on slack/discord/teams, etc.
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@jmoore said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
That's the key thing, with communications, you are often "stuck" with the choices of the least capable, least thinking party in a scenario.
Yeah I'm sure that's a factor as well. For example, anyone that i text will get back to me in less than an hour on a regular basis. Most of the time its within 5 min.
I will admit - if I don't respond to a text the min I see it (which could be as soon as it's received by my phone, could be hours later) I likely will never respond to it.
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@JaredBusch said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jmoore said in Why Do People Still Text:
Oh thats right, i don't do social media either. I didn't read that very thoroughly. Need to turn my voicemail off too, good idea.
I use social media. But never for communications
This is where I'm completely different - I use FB messenger more than any other communication method, with possible exception of telegram - where I chat with so many of you. I don't have any other communication methods available for 90% of my FB contacts...
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jim9500 said in Why Do People Still Text:
Do I expect an 8 - 24 hour response
email
Do I expect a 5 min - 2hr response
text
Do I need to talk to someone this instant
call
Do I want to see if casual acquaintances want drinks
Social media message
I feel like the platforms are used to communicate unspoken expectations.
This is why I like Slack. It fits for them all plus more in the enterprise. Everyone has it, so you don't need to worry about that part of it.
not everyone has it. and I hate slack, just like I hate discord. All those channels to watch, just to much noise - and I thought FB had a tonne of shite on it! it ain't got shit on slack/discord/teams, etc.
Yes, if you read correctly, you'd have seen I meant that in a given enterprise that uses slack as a company wide communication tool which ships it on all user devices, everyone has it. I did not mean everyone in the world has it. I thought I provided enough context to make that clear. My fault I guess.
And there is no clutter at all. Well, I suppose that depends on how it's managed. If fools set it up and manage it, then yes I can see it won't work well... just like many things, though.
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jim9500 said in Why Do People Still Text:
Do I expect an 8 - 24 hour response
email
Do I expect a 5 min - 2hr response
text
Do I need to talk to someone this instant
call
Do I want to see if casual acquaintances want drinks
Social media message
I feel like the platforms are used to communicate unspoken expectations.
This is why I like Slack. It fits for them all plus more in the enterprise. Everyone has it, so you don't need to worry about that part of it.
not everyone has it. and I hate slack, just like I hate discord. All those channels to watch, just to much noise - and I thought FB had a tonne of shite on it! it ain't got shit on slack/discord/teams, etc.
Yes, if you read correctly, you'd have seen I meant that in a given enterprise that uses slack as a company wide communication tool which ships it on all user devices, everyone has it. I did not mean everyone in the world has it. I thought I provided enough context to make that clear. My fault I guess.
And there is no clutter at all. Well, I suppose that depends on how it's managed. If fools set it up and manage it, then yes I can see it won't work well... just like many things, though.
yeah, you did mention that in a followup post to Scott. But, as Scott mentioned, you're basically forcing all those people to use a minimum of two methods because it's rare that your outside contacts have Slack, so you have to move to that other method to communicate with them.
This fracturing of communications is just a huge PITA.
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jim9500 said in Why Do People Still Text:
Do I expect an 8 - 24 hour response
email
Do I expect a 5 min - 2hr response
text
Do I need to talk to someone this instant
call
Do I want to see if casual acquaintances want drinks
Social media message
I feel like the platforms are used to communicate unspoken expectations.
This is why I like Slack. It fits for them all plus more in the enterprise. Everyone has it, so you don't need to worry about that part of it.
not everyone has it. and I hate slack, just like I hate discord. All those channels to watch, just to much noise - and I thought FB had a tonne of shite on it! it ain't got shit on slack/discord/teams, etc.
Yes, if you read correctly, you'd have seen I meant that in a given enterprise that uses slack as a company wide communication tool which ships it on all user devices, everyone has it. I did not mean everyone in the world has it. I thought I provided enough context to make that clear. My fault I guess.
And there is no clutter at all. Well, I suppose that depends on how it's managed. If fools set it up and manage it, then yes I can see it won't work well... just like many things, though.
yeah, you did mention that in a followup post to Scott. But, as Scott mentioned, you're basically forcing all those people to use a minimum of two methods because it's rare that your outside contacts have Slack, so you have to move to that other method to communicate with them.
This fracturing of communications is just a huge PITA.
OH sorry, I see now. No I was not referring to outside contacts. I meant strictly internally.
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
And there is no clutter at all. Well, I suppose that depends on how it's managed. If fools set it up and manage it, then yes I can see it won't work well... just like many things, though.
I'm less familiar with Slack, only used it twice for about 1 min total.. but discord - I'm a member of three groups, and each of those groups have like 20 subgroups.. to me that is a bloody mess.
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@jim9500 said in Why Do People Still Text:
Do I expect an 8 - 24 hour response
email
Do I expect a 5 min - 2hr response
text
Do I need to talk to someone this instant
call
Do I want to see if casual acquaintances want drinks
Social media message
I feel like the platforms are used to communicate unspoken expectations.
This is why I like Slack. It fits for them all plus more in the enterprise. Everyone has it, so you don't need to worry about that part of it.
not everyone has it. and I hate slack, just like I hate discord. All those channels to watch, just to much noise - and I thought FB had a tonne of shite on it! it ain't got shit on slack/discord/teams, etc.
Yes, if you read correctly, you'd have seen I meant that in a given enterprise that uses slack as a company wide communication tool which ships it on all user devices, everyone has it. I did not mean everyone in the world has it. I thought I provided enough context to make that clear. My fault I guess.
And there is no clutter at all. Well, I suppose that depends on how it's managed. If fools set it up and manage it, then yes I can see it won't work well... just like many things, though.
yeah, you did mention that in a followup post to Scott. But, as Scott mentioned, you're basically forcing all those people to use a minimum of two methods because it's rare that your outside contacts have Slack, so you have to move to that other method to communicate with them.
This fracturing of communications is just a huge PITA.
OH sorry, I see now. No I was not referring to outside contacts. I meant strictly internally.
I suppose Slack could make in-house communication better than email - forced pre-setup groups for specific messaging.. I haven't used it enough like that to know.
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
And there is no clutter at all. Well, I suppose that depends on how it's managed. If fools set it up and manage it, then yes I can see it won't work well... just like many things, though.
I'm less familiar with Slack, only used it twice for about 1 min total.. but discord - I'm a member of three groups, and each of those groups have like 20 subgroups.. to me that is a bloody mess.
Discord I can say can be a cluster F. If there's a way to rid all the game xrap forced in your face, it'd be so much better.
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More horror stories of texting. So @mary again, because once you start having texting problems you are more likely to have more of them. This time, just days after getting her phone replaced from the pool incident and having been out of contact for two weeks and losing all of her communications during that time... she had a massive electrical issue in her house that took out absolutely everything that was plugged in, including the new cell phone that was charging. Because she'd already had several phone issues, the phone company would not replace the phone and she had to wait on insurance which, because of the holidays, took a few weeks. So she has been effectively out of contact for nearly a month, immediately following a two week stint. Being tied to a phone makes texting very risky for continuity of service, even in the US. Now she finally has a phone, and she only can reach me because I knew that if something had happened that texts do not automatically get received if the device has been offline, so I was texting daily for a month and as soon as she had a phone she got that text, but none of the ones I sent even just over the weekend. Those texts are just lost.
If this was email, those messages would have been waiting for her. And if she was completely offline we'd have gotten a bounce back. And she could have accessed them from another device.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
More horror stories of texting. So @mary again, because once you start having texting problems you are more likely to have more of them. This time, just days after getting her phone replaced from the pool incident and having been out of contact for two weeks and losing all of her communications during that time... she had a massive electrical issue in her house that took out absolutely everything that was plugged in, including the new cell phone that was charging. Because she'd already had several phone issues, the phone company would not replace the phone and she had to wait on insurance which, because of the holidays, took a few weeks. So she has been effectively out of contact for nearly a month, immediately following a two week stint. Being tied to a phone makes texting very risky for continuity of service, even in the US. Now she finally has a phone, and she only can reach me because I knew that if something had happened that texts do not automatically get received if the device has been offline, so I was texting daily for a month and as soon as she had a phone she got that text, but none of the ones I sent even just over the weekend. Those texts are just lost.
If this was email, those messages would have been waiting for her. And if she was completely offline we'd have gotten a bounce back. And she could have accessed them from another device.
In this case, USPS would have been best lol
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You can get a dumb Nokia for, like, 20 bucks in Europe. I assume it's the same in the US. We have one that gets used everyone time a family member breaks their phone, which is quite regularly. It's also handy at festivals where you don't have to worry about theft or power to charge it (the battery lasts about a week!)
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why Do People Still Text:
You can get a dumb Nokia for, like, 20 bucks in Europe. I assume it's the same in the US. We have one that gets used everyone time a family member breaks their phone, which is quite regularly. It's also handy at festivals where you don't have to worry about theft or power to charge it (the battery lasts about a week!)
This is an excellent point. Mary should have just gone to Walmart and purchased the cheapest phone available if SMS was the only form of communication that she enjoyed.
But seriously? SMS and SMS only? I suppose, if you're millennial enough you might refuse to use email. She used no other form of communication what so ever?
Even the most technical illiterate people I know normally use both SMS and email - but often toss in something like FaceTime or Facebook Messenger.
Now if all of this is to say that the only way Scott had to get in contact with her was via SMS - perhaps they weren't that close, and up to that point, Mary never felt it important enough to provide Scott with secondary forms of communications.
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Maybe she just came up with a cunning excuse to avoid Scott? We’ve all been there!
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why Do People Still Text:
Maybe she just came up with a cunning excuse to avoid Scott? We’ve all been there!
There is no excuse. Someone only being available via sms when there's a hundred other options, or refusing other methods isn't worth the effort IMO. Maybe if someone is in a 3rd world country and simply does not have a single other option, even the cheapest 90's flip phone not available in an emergency, or during natural disaster... Then sure, temporarily i can see.
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I know some here like to use anomalies as confirmation bias or to justify a point, but I never buy those.
Planes go down, do you still fly? I'm sure everyone here still does.
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
I know some here like to use anomalies as confirmation bias or to justify a point, but I never buy those.
Planes go down, do you still fly? I'm sure everyone here still does.
Exactly.
This user would have the same issue if their computer was damaged and they didn't have the funds to replace/repair it.
Someone who relies solely on SMS for communication and doesn't have the funds/knowledge to replace their device at nearly the drop of a hat - why are you doing business with them?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why Do People Still Text:
You can get a dumb Nokia for, like, 20 bucks in Europe. I assume it's the same in the US. We have one that gets used everyone time a family member breaks their phone, which is quite regularly. It's also handy at festivals where you don't have to worry about theft or power to charge it (the battery lasts about a week!)
Problem is, lost SIM card, lost communications. And you have to keep buying and managing them. Yes, there is a solution to spend money, have an extra device, and muddle along to send/receive under limited circumstances. But it requires...
- Another solution for managing contacts.
- Another solution for maintaining message history.
- Another solution for handling lost messages during the transition.
- Keeping a second phone with you at all times.
- Never leaving a jurisdiction where they can instantly replace your SIM card with the same number.
- Spending extra money to solve something that shouldn't need to be solved.
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
This is an excellent point. Mary should have just gone to Walmart and purchased the cheapest phone available if SMS was the only form of communication that she enjoyed.
You could say the same thing about her email. Unlike the phone, you don't have to buy something, you just borrow anyone else's.
