I’m imagining that somewhere else Sister B has posted a thread about how frustrated she is that her Luddite brother refuses to get a smart phone and insists on sending her long winded emails when he knows she only has a phone to respond.
Answer = absolutely no difference. WhatsApp is just one of the first apps to send “text messages” via data rather than cell. It’s also popular because it transcends operating systems so Apple and Android users can text (using data) seamlessly. Since it uses data, not cell lines it also transcends carriers and regional or international borders.
It’s equally unreasonable to insist that everyone own a desktop/laptop style computer.
Sister B’s actual needs for e-communication may well be satisfied to her satisfaction by her mobile-only approach. Whether that make her Bro the OP happy is another thing. But ultimately that’s Bro’s problem, not Sis’s
Having said that I do share the OP’s frustration. There’s a sensation of casting pearls before swine when you write a detailed essay and get back a garbled half-thought. Part of which is due to the keyboard limitations discussed above.
But a lot more of which is driven by how we use our phones: as boredom abatement devices. The goal is to “get rid of” the emails. We do this while doing something else like watching TV, eating, etc. We’re barely paying attention to the words in the screen before we click out a quick response or better yet just push [Delete]. It’s that non-engagement with the real content of the real communicative intent of the sender that precludes a good response.
I email my volunteer group a few times a day soliciting input on various topics. Most folks read & respond on a PC. I get thoughtful complete sentences from them modulo their individual aptitude for writing which varies greatly.
One person dictates their response into a voice-to-text app. Sometimes on his tablet, other times on his phone.
It might be two or 4 paragraphs long, but it’s a stream of consciousness mess. So the ideas upthread that the keyboard itself is the problem and text-to-speech is the solution may not be as true as we all wish it would be. Even overlooking the inevitable word choice errors the TTS process makes, dictation is a linear process that, absent a real keyboard, is practically uneditable. And absent the give-a-shitness inherent in organized deliberate application of your communication skills, just results in what I get: Dictated stream of consciousness, followed by [Send], [Delete], [Show next email]. Lather rinse repeat. All while watching TV or riding in the car or …
See also this recent thread on essentially the same problem:
That’s great if you can get people to make actual phone calls - despite owning a phone many are surprisingly resistant to actually using them as phones.
I have WhatsApp because it is popular outside of the US and I use it to communicate with my clients who are on there.
It is really the same as my text messaging app from Google except Facebook is monitoring my communications. The free international calling is nice but it only seems to work about a third of time. Overall, I give it a Meh since everyone can receive text messages and only people who have downloaded the app can receive whatsapp message. Oh and there is a “feature” to leave voice messages instead of texting or phone calls that I really hate but one of my clients really loves.
And that is the reason I, for one, refuse to use WhatsApp. SMS is universal. SMS is provided by the telecoms common carrier infrastructure. SMS is safe (if not secure); WhatsApp is just another predatory Zuckerberg-ism.
My thesis: “It is my opinion that portable smart technology makes it difficult to respond to e-mail messages at length.”
Most responses thus far agree. What I failed to grasp, but now do, is the assertion that mobile devices aren’t really designed nor intended for elaborate e-mail communication. My bad there. So from now on I’ll cut sister B some slack.
For what it’s worth, there’s value in sending the same text to multiple recipients when a decision or guidance is called for. Multiple telephone calls inevitably present the “same” information differently.
BTW: Sister B is a middle school principal and has a laptop device at school. She does not take it home, nor do I send personal e-mails to her school account. In any case, her job mandates daily e-mail communication. She knows how to write.
Actually they are not. That’s what end-to-end strong encryption means. Facebook can’t access the content of messages. (No they can’t, according to professional cryptologists.)
That’s why politicians, diplomats, and government officials use it for sensitive communications in many countries, such as the UK.
WhatsApp makes its profit from WhatsApp Business, and from handling money transfers between individuals in some countries. It’s useful to be able to send or receive money without bank details or a credit card. You only have to know someone’s phone number.
And the internet isn’t?
But as usual Americans imagine they know better, and 2 billion people elsewhere are wrong.
Apparently, you aren’t familiar with monitoring. I didn’t say they were reading your messages I said they were monitoring them. They know who you talk to and how often and where you are when you talk to them. They also know a lot about your activities before and after each communication. Just like the metadata collection the NSA uses here in the US they can learn a lot about you without reading the actual text. Facebook is a data company they gather all the data they can whenever they can.
No, the internet isn’t everywhere. Only 81% of phones in the US have internet access out of the 96% of people that own a cell phone. On a worldwide basis only 51% of mobile users have internet access. I get you like Whatsapp but it certainly isn’t a solution for everything and it is similar to social media people go there because people are there not because it is better or different. About 2 billion have a Whatsapp but about 4 billion can receive a SMS message.
But your phone company already knows all that and more, including the content of your SMS’s and phone calls, and the sites you’re accessing on the internet. And that means so does the NSA, and anybody the phone company chooses to sell that data to, including Facebook.
There are two main reasons why ‘only’ 70 million Americans use WhatsApp. a) The phone companies pre-empted it when they saw it coming by ending charges for SMS’s before it caught on. b) Americans don’t often need to send messages or speak to people in other countries.
But try sending an SMS to someone in another country, or making a phone call to them, and see whether that’s easy and how much it costs.
Clearly WhatsApp has a lot of attractive technological features above and beyond what SMS has. And has international capabilities SMS should not lack, but does due to national carrier inertia.
But it has one total show-stopper feature for me: Zuckerberg. I may be the last idjit holding that opinion, but hold it I do. If WhatsApp was divested to nearly any other Megacorp, or better yet to a foundation like EFI or Wikimedia I’d adopt it that afternoon. Provided it was walled off so Z-world couldn’t see into it at all.
WhatsApp is not unique in that. I have used both Google Hangouts, Discord, and Signal to talk to people in other countries, for free. Signal offers end to end encryption if both parties have it, and sends an unencrypted SMS message to friends who don’t have Signal. (It doesn’t carry your text history to a new phone, however. I’m hoping they change that. Hangouts and Discord are not device dependant, and do carry stuff from device to device.)
Anyway, as i said above, the best client is the one your friends use. WhatsApp is extremely popular in much of the world, so it’s the best client in most of those places.
But i really don’t think the software controls how much you write. I’m writing this on my cell phone, in a place with lousy connectivity. For whatever reason, sister B doesn’t like to respond in as much detail as you would like. Not having a laptop is probably the result of not wanting to write lengthy letters, not the cause. IMO.
I agree with this. I’ve got to read, analyze and respond to emails all day long at work. The last thing I want to do in the evening is read and respond to a novella in my personal inbox. Sister B responds, and you’re going to have to adjust your expectations to be happy with that, I think.
@MoonMoon
[aside]
I just had to say that your avatar with the huskie and the watermelon is real cute. Does the dog actually eat the stuff, or just tear it apart & fling it around the yard?
My bro has had a series of huskies. His dogs live(d) to shred big things and fling them about. But they don’t eat much in the way of fruits or veggies.
[/aside]
Maybe it’s because of my job (I’m a lawyer and at least half of my day is sending or responding to email), but I find the hard part of emailing on a mobile device is reading what I’ve said, not entering the text. All smartphones now have a relatively reliable speech-to-text option in the keyboard, and Slide makes it pretty easy to type long messages even with a tiny keyboard.
[response] It’s not my dog/wolf. It’s a convoluted reference to the Moon Moon meme. I have a 25lb cocker spaniel mix who’s a nut for fruits and veggies, though, and he’d probably do some damage to a watermelon.
It’s a convoluted reference to the Moon Moon meme. I have a 25lb cocker spaniel mix who’s a nut for fruits and veggies, though, and he’d probably do some damage to a watermelon.