Why Do People Still Text
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City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
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When I receive an Amber Alert on my iPhone is that a SMS?
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@black3dynamite I'm not sure, but I would guess so. What I know is that the SMS for these gets copied to my desktop so I see them happen there, too. That's how I know that the weather ones are SMS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
We'll it's not like the city has everyone's email address, and if they did, not like everyone would see or be alerted of the email. The best way is via a phone feature all phones have that can alarm and alert, outside of sms.
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
We'll it's not like the city has everyone's email address, and if they did, not like everyone would see or be alerted of the email. The best way is via a phone feature all phones have that can alarm and alert, outside of sms.
SMS signals are more likely to be assured than a phone call I'm guessing. As far as I know, the cell company keeps trying for at least a while to get SMS messages through until an unknown timer expires or the mobile confirms receipt.
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
We'll it's not like the city has everyone's email address, and if they did, not like everyone would see or be alerted of the email. The best way is via a phone feature all phones have that can alarm and alert, outside of sms.
SMS signals are more likely to be assured than a phone call I'm guessing. As far as I know, the cell company keeps trying for at least a while to get SMS messages through until an unknown timer expires or the mobile confirms receipt.
I never mentioned phone calls...
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After a week of solid Internet but almost no working texting, I'm reminded of this topic. Telegram, Signal, What'sapp, Cliq, Slack, email all have worked but texting has not.
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@VoIP_n00b said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
no working texting
Why?
Some places the mobile/cell network resembles a pirate convention... patches everywhere.
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Seems appropriate:
https://xkcd.com/2365/ -
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
After a week of solid Internet but almost no working texting, I'm reminded of this topic. Telegram, Signal, What'sapp, Cliq, Slack, email all have worked but texting has not.
What, the country doesn't support it? or your vendor didn't support it or you didn't want to pay ridiculous SMS fees for international SMS?
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@nadnerB said in Why Do People Still Text:
Seems appropriate:
https://xkcd.com/2365/LOL - a very western view
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
After a week of solid Internet but almost no working texting, I'm reminded of this topic. Telegram, Signal, What'sapp, Cliq, Slack, email all have worked but texting has not.
What, the country doesn't support it? or your vendor didn't support it or you didn't want to pay ridiculous SMS fees for international SMS?
Who knows. But while having "SMS service", texting didn't work. I paid for the service. It was enabled. But texts couldn't get through. Same for other people there, too.
Just a technology that isn't reliable, is the bottom line.
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@VoIP_n00b said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
no working texting
Why?
Because when you send a text, the person doesn't receive it.
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I text because it makes my heart happy.
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My update since I now live in a country that is, for all intents and purposes, text free.
Life in Central America really highlights how much I don't text. Someone asked me last week about my stance on texting, assuming that I'd given up and embraced it in the fourteen years since he and I had first discussed how poor of a platform it is. But if anything, it's the opposite. I truly avoid it at a whole new level.
First, I routinely don't keep my phone with me during the work day and I have nothing that shows me texts on my desktop or alerts me if they come in. If I am getting a text via 2FA I know to go grab the phone. If someone is just texting me instead of using a secure messaging app that works on my desktop (everything but texting does work there now that WhatsApp uses the desktop, too) or email then they don't know me and aren't taking their messaging choices very seriously. If they don't care, why would I?
Second, often my phone dies during the day. I don't charge it at my desk. So if it is off, only things that work when my phone is off will get to me.
Third, while my Internet is super strong here, my cell phone signal is not. I live in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. If I am out and about there is a lot of coverage gaps. So texting isn't very reliable for me even if I am actively looking at it.
Four, Tmobile totally killed my Android phone a few weeks ago and it really highlighted how terrible it would be if I had had a dependency on texting to communicate. Luckily because I don't, I was only inconvenienced and still able to function. All my conversations continued.
Five, while SMS within the US has gotten a lot faster than when I used to test it years ago, messages to other places still take forever. Routinely an MMS message to a friend in Belgium would take three hours to send, and untold time to be delivered. Carrying on a conversation was useless. So by the time I get a text, typically we would have already worked around it.
Six, texting isn't free here and texting between carriers is not open. No one does it. No one. I've not seen a single text sent or received by anyone in six months. It's a totally old, dead technology here. Everyone is on encrypted, modern messaging apps and has been for many years... at least six years because it was like this here in 2015, too. Even phone calls are essentially dead here. People call on things like WhatsApp because it is free and works on any connection.
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I'm old school.
Personally, phones are for my convenience. If I am doing anything at all, the phone goes unanswered.
As a general rule, only my family and closest friends have my cell number.For work, I believe the only way to communicate with our clients is by voice. I don't look at my cellphone or e-mail very often unless I am specifically working with some and e-mail is where the conversation ended up. For example, e-mail is usually good when working with people who have very heavy accents, or their written english is better than their spoken english.
I guess I would get along just fine in a small ocean front village in Central America!
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@jasgot said in Why Do People Still Text:
I'm old school.
Personally, phones are for my convenience. If I am doing anything at all, the phone goes unanswered.
As a general rule, only my family and closest friends have my cell number.For work, I believe the only way to communicate with our clients is by voice. I don't look at my cellphone or e-mail very often unless I am specifically working with some and e-mail is where the conversation ended up. For example, e-mail is usually good when working with people who have very heavy accents, or their written english is better than their spoken english.
I guess I would get along just fine in a small ocean front village in Central America!
This isn't exactly the same as what Scott is saying.
You're basically saying - I only accept phone calls, or someone comes and physically finds me.
Scott is saying - why are people using old outdated unknown to be unreliable communications methods? And while people like Scott are in the sever minority (in the USA at least - not keeping phone near by, etc) he's definitely not alone in this.
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Why do people still text? At least in the US? Because it works for them.
If it didn't, they would move onto something that worked better.Most people don't give two shits about privacy or security - especially if it brings the tiniest amount of friction to their lives.
Unlike Scott - the masses do keep their phones near them and charged, at least near enough that other solutions don't present themselves as a much more reliable communication channel.
Cost - Scott mentioned the other side of this, in the US, SMSing in basically included in all plans - no cost difference, therefore no friction/reason to find another solution.
Side note - I wouldn't be surprised one bit today if the US Gov't was subsidizing the costs of SMS/MMS so that people stay on the platform allowing them to more easily monitor all of those messages.Scott has shown that places like the third world, where things like SMS isn't included, yet data is data (and clearly not so expensive to drive people away) so people moved to solutions that didn't cost them beyond what they were already paying? I'm curious - do those plans there include a specific amount of data for a flat rate? Or is data unlimited like on so many plans in the US now?
