How Many Text Messages Do You Send a Day?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
Automated status reports (Score:3)
Does it count if I send SMS status reports from systems that I set up and maintain? I mean, technically I think I'm texting myself. Sort of.
Re:Automated status reports (Score:5, Funny)
Text messages? (Score:3)
If we're talking SMS from my smartphone, I can't recall ever having sent more than 10 in a single day - but I *can* recall my son saying he broke the 2000 messages/month included in his plan - it's an age thing, I guess ;)
If we're talking IM, other chat systems, mail, tweets, and G+ updates, it's probably in the "over 100" category.
Why I don't text while driving - Bad UI ! (Score:2)
Sure, there's all this political correctness about how it's rude to run over people and crash into cars because you were texting while you should have been driving. But that's not the real reason I don't do that...
The #$#$* HTC Android 2.1-update1 text application uses too small a font size, and doesn't let the user change the font, so I have to put on my reading glasses if I want to read texts, and I have to take them off if I want to see past the dashboard. Yes, Android has a little microphone widget on
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this should meet your requirements [google.com]
See also this [cnet.com]
Re: Text messages? (Score:2)
How old are you? I'm in my thirties and have send as much as 2500 texts in a month while talking for about 2000 minutes
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How old are you? I'm in my thirties and have send as much as 2500 texts in a month
I'm 45. Got my first 'cell phone' in 1997. I send about 8-10 texts per week - Most are part of the 2 or 3 text 'conversations' I have per week. I probably send 2 SMS pictures per month.
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I'm 43. Got my first 'cell phone' in 1993. I regularly send/receive over 3000 texts in a month. Then again, I use the cell phone very little for calls -- like averaging 60 minutes per month.
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well i'm in my twenties, and I average around 200 texts per day. I guess it is an age thing.
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Having a phone with a responsive larger screen would probably make me hate it less, but I have a work phone so am stuck with a Samsung Galaxy Ace for the time being (which is extremely sluggish).
Zero! (Score:3, Insightful)
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I won't send text messages at all. The rates are ridiculous. They're marginally free for the phone companies, since they fit them into the "hey, phone, where are you?" packets that the network is sending anyway. Send me an email instead, an email that reads "Sorry, I'm getting off your lawn!"
Cost isn't my factor, it's I couldn't be bothered If I'm going to interact it's through a phone call.
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Agreed. I see no reason to SMS someone when I can simply ping them through our favorite IM solution (whichever that is, YMMV) or just, you know, call them.
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send zero.... receive zero.... our phones have a block on all data and text -- used to get tons of text spam.. not any more. ;p
verizon, naturally, chose to ignore that account setting (that we had in place for years) when integrating our alltel account, and we had a massive surge in text spam for a couple weeks. it took *that long* to get verizon to add that feature (or rather, the lack of several) back to our plan. next time they fuck up will be the last -- termination fees be damned. verizon sucks.
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At least, that's how it works over here in Belgium.
I suspect the OP is in the USA. They are not big on consumer rights there. They have a negative effect on profits.
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Personally, there are lots of situations I'd rather receiver a text than a phone call (of course, as you said, I'd rather receiver a Google Talk or other IM message even more). A phone call means I have to, at minimum check to see who is calling, and if the call/caller is important enough to me drop what I am doing and have a minimum 1 minute conversation (and an large number of people feel the need to stretch that out into 5 minutes with pointless small talk that has nothing to do with the reason for thei
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Yeah, SMS was really supposed to be the "poor man's phone call". But thanks to the marketing geniuses here in the West, it's a "premium feature".
But really, I just pay for unlimited data, and use my Google Voice # to send / receive SMSs for free when I need to.
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Cost isn't my factor, it's I couldn't be bothered If I'm going to interact it's through a phone call.
For me it's the opposite. I wasn't much of a fan of texting when it first gained popularity, but when I realized it meant I wouldn't actually have to speak to people over the phone I decided it was awesome.
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A phone call is often extremely inconvenient -- if you're in a meeting, if you have company, or if you're at a loud bar or a club, or if you're traveling, it is hard to answer the phone. But unlike voice, text messages are asynchronous, which is awesome. I don't need to answer it immediately, and I can get to it when I want. Text messages are infinitely more convenient because unlike voice, I can send media (pictures, clips, links etc). It's even more convenient when you have friends across various timezone
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I find the phone frustratingly inconvenient, especially for swapping simple information, which often takes 5-10 minutes. If I'm going to talk at length to socialize, I do it while hanging out enjoying one another in-person. Also with the phone, I always worry that I'll be interrupting something if I call, and about all of the little nonverbal social niceties: how to end the call without causing offense or implying I'd rather be doing something else (even if I would), noticing when the other person would ra
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I won't send text messages at all. The rates are ridiculous.
My new contract (the SIM arrived today) includes 5000 per month "free". The current company's website suggests I use about 100-150 a month, which sounds about right (maybe 1 a day, but if I'm meeting someone after work or at the weekends it could be 5-10).
I could email, but most people expect to receive these kind of messages by text.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Service#SMS_today [wikipedia.org]
http://phys.o [phys.org]
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I won't send text messages at all. The rates are ridiculous.
Sucks being in a third world (by telco's standards) country doesn't it?
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When I used text messages daily, back in the 90s, they were free. Not "free as in included in an expensive plan", but free, no matter what plan (or lack thereof) you were on.
E-mails quickly racked up charges, though. As a consequence, there were several SMS-to-e-mail gateways, both for sending and receiving..
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Yes and no. I find texting to SOMETIMES be more time-convenient for both parties.
Yes, by the time you type out a 170char statement you could have easily dialed, waited for the guy to pickup, and talk. But... then HE has to talk. And maybe he's a little too busy at work / home to answer to even answer the phone. Or maybe he answers because it might be urgent, but it's really you asking something that isn't urgent and says he'll call you back. Or maybe it's a question that requires him to look something
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Ting [ting.com] starts at $3/100 txt, min or mb (non-bundled), and T-Mobile's [t-mobile.com] $30 for unlimited texts and either 5gb+100min or 30mb+1500min. Both are no-contract prepaid monthly plans with optional BYOD.
I decided to go with Ting about a week ago after researching companies for ages. They allow sharing at $6/device, sell new/refurbs below cost, and have separate tiers for voice/data/texts with automatic adjustment (no overages). Here's the first 3 levels for each:
Minutes: $3/100, $9/500, $18/1k
Texts: $3/100, $5/1k, $
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I voted "zero", but it's more "one a week". Interestingly, because I have 100 free sms/mo on my plan, still I almost always use WhatsApp. Mainly because I use it to share pics ("should I buy this/that?").
My teenage daughter's answer would be 100... (Score:3, Funny)
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5500/30 = 183.3 sms per day
183/16 = 11.5 sms per waking hour
11/60 = 0.2 sms per waking minute
So about 1 every five minutes for the entire day. O_O At least she has no time to use your voice minutes!
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And with some phones allowing you to use "group" features to send LOL texts to 10 people at once, it doesn't even take that long!
Whats a Text message? (Score:2)
If it's strictly SMS, I seldom use it. These days all I get are SMS spam, and the OTP tokens whenever I bank online. Why pay 10c a message when i can Whatsapp, gtalk or facebook message on my phone for the price of my data plan?
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10c a message !!!???!!!! It's been included for ages over here in Europe.
I still cannot fathom why you pay such outrageous rates for everything wireless (or wired for that matter). Competition is a bitch, but it works over here. We actually got our 4th cellphone carrier last year. Rates instantly dropped by 50% at least. We now have a plan that costs 2€/month !! (internet not included though, but 2h talk and unlimited SMS)
Everything unlimited fares from $15 to $20 / month
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Get this, he pays 10c to RECEIVE them.
I am not making this up, I lack the imagination.
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rip off. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure I'm getting old and all that but I just can't get into texting. Mostly this is due to the fact that I don't own a cell phone. If I did own one, I would still find the concept of paying for texting offensive. The data rates put the cost per megabyte somewhere around the same rates as buying Winchester disk storage in the early 1980s. The worst part is that the true cost for the service provider is effectively nothing - texting plans are about as close to 100% profit as anything ever put on the market. Even if you got unlimited texting for "free" as part of your plan, it's part of the product that they charging you for.
I have to disagree... (Score:3)
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The upfront costs of building the network of antennas are very large, so the telcos must somehow charge for it. Also the maintenance of the network is no small deal. All this stuff you don't pay for.
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You can text through e-mails and AIM though. Both are free to send. ;)
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I'm fairly old (in my fifties), but there are definitely situations where I find texting much more convenient than calling.
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txting iPhone to iPhone is free via iMessage. 95% of my txts are via iMessage.
There are android equivalents to iMessage. Many of us pay nothing for our txt messaging.
From 0-5 (Score:2)
Most days, I don't text at all. Sometimes, though, I text my GF, but I don't think I've ever sent more than 5 texts a day.
Re:From 0-5 (Score:4, Funny)
Most days, I don't text at all. Sometimes, though, I text my GF, but I don't think I've ever sent more than 5 texts a day.
Yeah, if you were to text any more frequently your wife might catch on.
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Yeah, if you were to text any more frequently your wife might catch on.
Not to worry - I'm keeping his wife busy.
Too many. (Score:2)
If I had my way, I would either send none, or use them as an occasional notification for those few times when calling is overkill. As it is now, I usually end up having to send at least four or five messages a day, because for whatever reason my sister insists on using the damn things as her exclusive form of communication. I have a strong preference toward using a phone to actually, you know, call people for communication. Drives me fucking nuts when I have to dick around "typing" on a god damn phone an
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:Pay pes second voice (Score:2)
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I hear the answering-machine bit a lot as a reason to not text. And I'm not going to argue against it (for everyone) because for some, that's fine.
But for others... well... a fair percentage of my texts involve something specific. Directions, addresses, shopping lists, server names, etc. Things that could be easily lost in translation or forgotten. With a text, assuming I don't make a typo, they have the exact directions with the correct spelling of the street (Walden vs Warden, Sycamore vs Sagamore, Ser
Phone company should pay YOU to text (Score:2)
How the industry evolved this overpriced model for sending a miniscule amount of data (when they'd be saving bandwidth by encouraging texting) is beyond. me.
missing option (Score:2)
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Agreed, I will send a few a week, but not many.
A few every now and then (Score:2)
I may send 4 or 5 in a week. . .
More than zero and less than one. (Score:2)
11-20 typically (Score:2)
On most days I probably send about 11-20, but some days I can go a lot higher. Averaging it out, probably 20-30.
"Text Messages" - how quaint! (Score:2)
The actual question (Score:2)
Do you have a significant other, yes or no?
You mean your phones don't even have email? (Score:2)
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The problem is you have to trust that everyone you contact has a smartphone with at least a decent data-plan.
Unfortunately I know people that have flip-phones that they hate typing on. I know people with smart phones but crazy-small data plans because they don't want to use it much -- meaning they turn off their cellular data when they're out.
Plus, I find the conversation view on a chat system easier to follow. Not that the email threads are hard to follow, but simpler is sometimes better.
All my email messages are text, not HTML or voice. (Score:2)
All my emails and SMSes are written in text, no fancy HTML or pictures. I also do not use voice messages (aka voicemail).
This is a weird poll question ;-)
WhatsApp (Score:3)
Ugh (Score:2)
What about emails? (Score:2)
I don't do text messaging much except to my kids. They have iPhones so I am not sure if that is an age thing or maybe iPhones do not do emails as easily as real Smartphones.
For everything else, there is Gmail. This has the added advantage that I can read it from my tablet home PC or work if I want to.. My gmail does not get lost every time I get a new phone or reset the one I have either. I think I have had Gmail for a long time and I have filled 0.6% of my allotted space. Why do people still use SMS t
Do Instant Messages count as Text? (Score:2)
At work rather than yell across the room or pick up the phone, we click away at the keyboards to ask a question via an instant message tool Technically they are text messages in my eye, they just aren't over the phone. But then again aren't all text messages over the phone really over the internet?
So 25-50 is pretty standard for me. Although I still prefer picking up the phone or walking over to someone. I like hearing a voice.
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Less than 10 a day? Slashdot users really are old.
Of course we don't text much, we're too busy telling people to get off our lawns!
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Some of us old folks have kept up with the times, and use bluetooth to broadcast to all cell phones within 40' of our house to get off our lawns.
Not wanting to accept change isn't just for old folks, and not every not-young person is afraid of change.
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Of course a lot of us are old. Who do you think made and/or designed most of the technology you use and take for granted?
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Less than 10 a day? Slashdot users really are old.
Or, smart enough to realize that almost anything that can be said in 160 characters or less, really isn't worth saying at all.
A lot of us don't have Twit accounts, either.
Re:Age Gap (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, smart enough to realize that almost anything that can be said in 160 characters or less, really isn't worth saying at all.
"Hey, do you wanna to go camping this weekend?"
"Shit, I'm gonna be a few minutes late for our meeting"
Or even something as simple as "Happy Birthday!".
Yeah, I can't possibly think of any use for a communication medium that is terse.
I swear, I'm as much of an old grumpy fuck as the next Slashdotter - but even I recognize something that's ubiquitous, simple, and damned handy. Email is more involved, calling has its own issues (not everyone is free to engage in a call every second of the day), IM is nowhere near standardized...
Gimme SMS text for making plans with people or blasting off quick info, thanks. It's one of the best technologies invented in terms of "it just works". Well, presuming most people have cellphones (insert a bunch of comments below about how you don't own a TV either, and we may have another Onion article on our hands).
Contrary to what some kids seem to think these days, SMS texting is not Twitter. I'm not sending "I'm taking a dump!" to my friends through SMS (although perhaps I should...).
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Hah! The other day, my GF's niece texted her a picture of one of those pregnancy test sticks. GF phoned her and, yes, the niece is pregnant! Probably wouldn't have been so good for her to tell her hubby that way though. :)
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Or even worse: "I'm pregnant. Who was the father?"
(from one of those Hemingway 6-word story contests)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html [wired.com]
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I'm not sending "I'm taking a dump!" to my friends through SMS (although perhaps I should...).
Are ....
*glup*
Are you ?
*shivers*
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Oblig. xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1045/ [xkcd.com]
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Email is more involved
As I see it, e-mailing involves:
1) enter/select recipient
2) type message
3) hit send
Can someone explain to me what makes SMS less involved than those three steps? I've never done it, and I honestly can't imagine what could make it simpler.
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Email is more involved
As I see it, e-mailing involves: 1) enter/select recipient 2) type message 3) hit send Can someone explain to me what makes SMS less involved than those three steps? I've never done it, and I honestly can't imagine what could make it simpler.
Character limitations and tiny keyboards?
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Precisely; as a matter of fact, I was just talking to one of my colleagues about Twitter and we both agreed it's been dumbing people (and communication) down. :)
Ironically, your post contains 173 characters, spaces included. You're awfully close to the Twitter threshold, so better watch it!
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Every phone I've used in at least the last 10 years has the capability to combine SMS messages together seamlessly for both sending and receiving; most messages I send are typically made up of 3-4 text messages glommed together.
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I don't even own a cellphone, and I work for a semiconductor manufacturer.
Good for you, my friend works for JPL. Of course, he's a janitor.
The "I work for X" is just as useless as saying "combined, the X of us have Y years of experience" The experience bit always drives me nuts, because sometimes its a group of rookies saying "the 5 of us have 7 years experience" Sorry, 5 individual rookies with Y experience doesn't make you more knowledgeable about your job than a 6 year veteran.
I work for X means nothing. Maybe you're a rookie, maybe you're a janitor, maybe your job has n
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Only if it's ASCII.
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If you have an old-school phone, it takes less time and less money to call than to text
Perhaps less of your time, but I'd find it a bit rude if someone called me -- meaning I have to immediately stop what I'm doing, losing concentration and being impolite to anyone I'm with -- to tell me something short enough to text.
If you interrupt what I'm doing, when you don't even know what I'm doing, it had better be important.
Re:Missing option (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me get this straight:
You have chosen to carry a communications device, on which anyone from your mother to your coworker to a telemarketer could call you at any time...
You have chosen not to turn this device off or even silence it...
You have chosen to take a call in the physical presence of someone else in a context you admit counts as impolite...
I take it back - I shouldn't have closed that "cranky old man" tag. I clearly don't understand what passes for "polite" among those damned kids on my lawn.
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If you interrupt what I'm doing, when you don't even know what I'm doing, it had better be important. Let me get this straight: You have chosen to carry a communications device, on which anyone from your mother to your coworker to a telemarketer could call you at any time... You have chosen not to turn this device off or even silence it... You have chosen to take a call in the physical presence of someone else in a context you admit counts as impolite... ...And you would consider it "rude" that someone would rather talk to a friend for 30 seconds than annoy everyone around both of you with 10 round trips of "yeah not a ringtone but still annoying" bleeps?
Yup, pretty much. You carry around a communications device because hey, your house might be on fire! That doesn't mean it's polite to have phone conversations all the time. Texting is a low-priority, reasonably-private means of communication. If you're doing something important and someone texts you, you can let it lie until you're free, and nobody will care. With that, the whole "you have chosen to take a call..." bit isn't as relevant, because you don't turn down a call; a call is high priority and h
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Yup: for me phonecall == high priority and urgent. Text == we can wait for a response
Admittedly, some people I know have reversed preferences than I do. THEY want Texts to be anything that needs an IMMEDIATE reply and phone calls for nothing urgent which I don't understand (but can accept). A phonecall means a long ringtone going on for 5-10 seconds and thus grabs the attention... while a text might just be a couple of beeps. In which case, if my house was on fire... I'd hope you'd want to get my attent
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Yes, yes and yes, because my expectation is that any call I receive is important (if I know the number).
Cultures differ, and at my workplace (in England) if someone's phone rings during a meeting and they answer it, when they've finished they'll be asked if there's a problem -- do they need to go and collect a sick child from school, for example. (Average age is probably about 35-40, range 25-60-ish)
Causing an interruption to learn that you need to buy bread on the way home is not acceptable.
Text messages
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If the purpose of the call is to impart information, and by definition (see above) that information is important, then one should expect the recipient to write it down somehow. Upon what, you ask? Well, he could scrabble for a pen and paper, and somewhere upon which to rest, I guess, but the modern man-about-town would surely prefer to use the PDA he has in his pocket, which happens to have phone functionality, obviously!
So the caller expects the recipient to ente
Re:Missing option (Score:4, Informative)
That makes me wonder, why do you talk to anyone live except in emergencies? They could just text or email you, and you could deal with such tasks as exchanging pleasantries over dinner in a quick 30 second read through. Probably not even any response necessary, just a round-table of status updates ("Oh, can we parking lot that comment about your boyfriend, I don't give a damn about your relationships, sorry Sally") from all the diners present and chew chew chew before heading off to "important" things.
I guess I just tend to consider "life", and fellow humans in general, as inherently real-time phenomena. As opposed to merely one more queue of annoyances to process when someone with whom I would like to chat can spare some cycles. Then again, I also just ignore the damned phone when I don't feel like taking a call, and don't secretly harbor the delusion that everyone magically knows when I might (or might not) want to talk to them. What do people do, check into FourSquare as available to take calls from Mom?
Apologies in advance for the vitriol, but seriously? I consider myself one of the most anti-social people I know, and it still just blows me away that some people consider making a phone call to a friend rude.
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I prefer my communication to be non-ephemeral, so I prefer e-mail to telephone calls. If you get a touching e-mail from an old friend, one who you aren't in either constant real-time contact with, you can read that mail as many times as you
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The caller doesn't magically know that you have a meeting going on. They don't know you've gone out to lunch with a potential customer. They don't know you've decided to play a 3pm game of hide-the-sausage with your secretary. They don't know you have after-dinner company over for Poker on a Tuesday night.
I guess I just can't grasp the idea of ascribing rudeness to someone for what amount to their lack of p
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Because, if it was something unimportant that didn't need an reply RIGHT NOW, they would/should have texted instead.
If you need an answer/reply RIGHT NOW, call.
If you need an answer/reply soon, sometime in the next few hours, text.
If you need an answer/reply sometime in the next few days or it is an announcement to a large group, email.
I don't think that is a hard concept. Of course there are exceptions, like calling to be social after work hours is ok occasionally. But if I get a call in the middle of th
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Texting seriously needs to die.
Or you seriously need to fix your (huge) telco issues. In France it's unlimited with basically every plan, starting at $2/month.
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Actually, it's a technology problem. Calls are/were fairly hard on the cell phone network, and cell towers could only handle a few dozen concurrent call connect/disconnects at a time. Once the call is established, it's relatively easy on the network. The problem is that in the US, SMS messages act like a phone call. They do a multi-way handshake, set up a communications channel, send a bit of data, then tear down the connection again. Remember, the US cell phone network was created long before it was a
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Same here, but not quite as cranky... I just don't use my phone much. I average about 3 calls a week, maybe 5 or 6 texts. If I sent more texts, I might be concerned about the price (or I might just cave in and load WhatsApp), but at this rate the cost is negligible.
Although I was never fond of talking on the phone, I'm far from being a hermit. I own a restaurant/pub about 5min walk from home, so I just don't have much use for the cell phone. I'm almost always either at home or at work, and I have a land lin