I don’t really make use of text messaging, but I have a few friends who’ll occasionally send me text messages. Oddly enough, I’ll generally just call them back to have a quick chat instead of wasting the 10c/text to say “hey” or “you too!” in reply. I’m ambivalent about whether I’d like texting if I did it regularly, and am even more ambivalent about the whole “smartphone” thing. I like computers, am comfortable with the internet and instant messaging, but am generally uncomfortable with the idea of a handheld device that I can carry around that lets me do that all the time. That’d be like giving in to something and making it an addiction. Plus, I don’t need that kind of distraction. I use my phone as my primary contact, and even then, it doesn’t ring more often than once a day or so. When I’m living in the same place as my fiance, it rings even less. I like when it doesn’t ring, but I also like that I can pester people while shopping if I need a question answered. Oddly enough, if it weren’t for the convenience of calling people while on the go, I’d revert back to landline only status.
For reference, I’m 23, female, and in between undergraduate and graduate school.
Never have, and have no need or desire to.
Of course, I don’t carry a cell phone either…
46 year old fuddy duddy.
My job/life are such that it is exceedingly rare (read, not yet) that anything comes up that can’t wait until I get to a landline phone or computer.
I probably send 40 or 50 texts a week, but only make two or three calls on my mobile. They’re just so much more efficient. I don’t want a conversation, I just want to say “I’m running late”, or “Can you pick up some milk on the way home” or whatever. I hate talking on the phone at the best of times, so texts are ideal.
I can’t understand people that say they’re “bothered” by receiving text messages, The beauty of them is that you don’t have to look at them immediately, and the other person doesn’t have to be free to take a call. If I want to get a message to my girlfriend while she’s at work, I can just send it when I think of it, and not have to time it around her schedule.
I’m 35 and just texted my 33-year-old boyfriend yesterday: he’s been out of town since Friday and doesn’t come back until tomorrow (he’s in Arizona for tonight’s Florida-Ohio State game), and yesterday I was sitting around missing him so I sent him a text message that said, “Is it Tuesday yet? ;)” I could have sent the same message via e-mail, but I texted because I thought it would make him smile to get such a message while he was out and about. (I was right.) We don’t text each other often, because I can’t have my cell phone at work, but I definitely believe that text messaging is a useful form of communication.
My brother (also an adult) is fond of text messages, but unfortunately he hasn’t mastered the idea that they are not a replacement for e-mail or phone calls: he’ll often text me with a question that has a complicated answer, and I just wind up calling him instead of texting back. Oh well. I guess it’s better than not hearing from him at all.
It’s been my experience that people who feel they have to drop everything the moment their cell phone rings also feel that they have to drop everything the moment they receive a text message.
I’m another one who hated the cellphone and only got one because I was going on a vacation far, far away with people I didn’t trust 100% so wanted to be safe. I have grown to tolerate it more, chiefly because I can get my phone calls to my family out of the way when I have nothing else to do anyway. However, it’s a pay-as-you-go so no, I don’t have texting. If I had it, I might use it - for the half dozen or so contacts I have programmed in there.
Without text messaging, I may not ever talk to my 17yo stepdaughter. I often text her when she’s at work to let her know that there are leftovers in the fridge or that we need her to set the intrusion alarm when she gets home. Sometimes, we can have full conversations about such deep topics as why she shouldn’t refer to something as “gay” when what she really means is “stupid” or “pointless.”
My husband and I work together. He runs a restaurant and catering service while I run payroll, bartend at the restaurant one night a week, and bartend all the banquets. When I’m at a banquet bar and I run low on Crown, for example, I can just text “crown” and he knows exactly what I mean. Otherwise, I could call him and spend 10 minutes on the phone with him because he’s a long-winded phone talker. I frequently have to tell him, “gotta go…I’ve got a customer” while he rambles on about some customer who came into the restaurant who he hasn’t seen in a million years who got married a couple months ago to another person he used to know who has three kids from a previous marriage and how they all ordered the enchiladas…blah blah blah…all the while, the point being that the enchilada sauce tasted funny, and if it hadn’t been for this family, he might never have known about it.
My husband is quite a bit older than I am (22 years older), so this text messaging business hasn’t been as easy to learn for him as it was for me. He’s made so much progress, though, that he told me the other day that he texted his brother instead of calling him. His daughter and I were so proud.
I use text to communicate with my kids (both in high school). I find it a convenient way to get short messages across, but I don’t know any adults that text. My daughter had 2995 messages last month.
I never text. Too damn old, I guess. You have to be part of a texting culture to have it even make sense. At work I’m almost always at my desk, so I can be gotten with e-mail or the phone. In transit, I can get or make a cell call. At home, I’m reachable by phone or e-mail.
I receive text messages on my cell phone which in the past were sent to my pager. This allowed me to stop carrying the pager for work. I don’t send text messages. With my level of thumb dexterity, it’s quicker for me to leave a voice mail.
I love texting on the PC. I have Trillian, but very few friends that log on. My GF, a guy from school, a friend that occasionally logs in at work, and one of my roommates. I am always logged in at home or at work.
I don’t text on the cell, but only because it doesn’t come free, I am a poor college student, and I don’t know anybody else that has a text plan. I would definitely text more than I talk (I hate talking on the phone, it borders on a phobia).
For what its worth, my girlfriend likes to talk on the cell phone and is against texting. She would rather talk, while I would rather not (phone thing, not that I am against talking to her). I have tried to explain the benefits of text messaging, but she seems against it for some reason. I am the type that thinks it is inefficient to call just to say “While you are out, can you pick up some milk?, ok, goodbye”, when I could text it, that and she tends to act offended when I am curt. I just don’t see the need to have a 10 minute conversation just to pass on one little bit of information.
I have no landline and use my cell phone exclusively, and I am 29.
I’m 20 and text a lot, often end up having text-tennis conversations until one of us says “right, enough of this, just phone me” or similar. My contract is a ‘flex’ plan where you get an allowance of ‘unit’ for both calls and texts, depending which you use more. Most months my allowance is for twice as many texts as calls.
As an aside, I’ve recently lost my phone, and I’m using a spare model from home, the Sony Ericsson P910i, which has a mini-keyboard and a touchscreen for grafitti-style stylus input. As handy as both of those sound, my text-input speed has fallen dramatically, taking twice as long to compose a message, and I can’t wait to get a normal phone again.
My Dad got a massive mobile phone way back in the early 90’s, and I thought it was really cool, he thought it was going to be annoying. Only turned it on to make calls, and didn’t have a clue what SMS meant. Now he texts everyone in our family, normally a few times a day, he even uses “text speak” sometimes (something which I cannot stand, and insist on writing out my messages in clear, full English!). He’s 48.
But you can send a text message from a website. LJ, among many others offers this, if the LJ user has supplied their number & carrier. I have a Widget that does the same.
I lost my cell phone in my house once: I have no land line and couldn’t call the phone and locate it that way, so I wound up going to Verizon’s website and texting myself. It was maddening having to wait for the “you have a message” beeps and zeroing in on the phone’s location that way (I have my phone set to vibrate for text messages), but it worked.
