I’ll text a short message or a back and forth conversation. I’ll email a longer message, an attachment, or a link to something best viewed on a PC than a phone.
Because people are stubborn.
I have my preferences due to the limitations of my phone. I will NOT follow a link in a text and my phone simply doesn’t do QR codes. I have told people this repeatedly. I still have people insisting on sending me links in texts. I still have people telling me to scan QR codes, apparently in disbelief my phone can’t use them. (No, really, it can’t)
Add in a high stress situation like a death or hospitalization and folks will completely forget that other people don’t have the same phone set up or practices they do and suddenly they’re texting that family member who only takes phone calls.
I have explained that he has a very current smartphone and will use it just fine as a smartphone if the text/whatsapp/x/TEAMS/etc. is coming from someone who is paying him. His boss, a client, a coworker, a business contact who he gets referrals from. Not his mother.
My mother is 85, she’s quite used to dealing with people who can’t or won’t use technology.
Yes.
I am forbidden from answering my phone or responding to text/e-mail while on the clock. I have occasionally had problems with people who don’t understand this. When I’m on the clock I am interacting with customers, it would be unacceptably rude to interrupt that interaction to answer my phone.
I read this thread and am quite surprised: my idea was that in the US people are very media-savvy, everybody has their smartphone ready all the time. I don’t know to what extent dopers are representative, judging from the thread here mobile phones seem not to matter much.
For me - and I am by no means an exemption - my smartphone is much more than just a phone, it is my companion all the time and everywhere. It is my calendar and reminder for appointments, it has all my contacts, it’s my map in the city, my to-do-list, shopping list, it is my reminder for chores, without a smartphone I couldn’t make doctors’ appointments (they usually don’t answer the phone any more), I read the newspapers when I need to wait somewhere (it is foldable, so the screen is not so small), I write emails and texts, pay with my phone at the checkout and in bank transfers. The least I am using it is for phone calls.
I do almost all the things you mention with my phone ( I’m not sure what you mean by “chores” - I certainly don’t schedule a reminder to do the laundry) but I do plenty of them with a tablet or laptop, too. Basically, I use the phone when the tablet/desktop is inconvenient - why would I read a newspaper or write an email from my phone in my living room when my other options have a larger screen, a keyboard etc. Same as I wouldn’t watch a movie on my phone at home. And if for some reason I want to check my calendar or add something to my shopping list on my phone it’s a lot easier to go get it at the point I want to use it than to literally carry it with me 24/7.
I think you are on some level assuming that everyone’s life is similar to yours - some people have jobs where they not only can’t answer their phone, they can’t even have it with them so if you try to call/text them at 8 am, they might not see it until 5 or 6. Some people don’t leave their house/property all that much - I’m not a hermit, but I’m retired and I might be at home for days at a time, if I don’t have any reason to leave. Some people don’t want to be distracted from what they are doing by hearing the phone make noise. I know people who don’t talk on the phone, any phone that often so they leave their cellphone in the car, as it’s for emergency use. You might carry your phone at all times as you move around your home, but I really doubt most people can’t be without their phone for the ten minutes it might take them to get a snack or put a load of laundry into the washer.
I do but the Gen Ys in our family hardly read texts and even more rarely reply.
I’m 52, and I conceive of communication with friends/acquaintances as a hierarchy. Phone calls for the most urgent and/or hard to communicate stuff, texts for non urgent simple stuff, and emails for attaching files and for retention purposes, but without any sort of expectation of timeliness in reading or replying.
So if I really need to talk to my wife about something NOW, or I need to explain something in detail, it’s a phone call.
If it’s just a quick “Are you picking up dinner or should I?” type thing, it’s a text. If it’s me sending my son’s scout troop a form or something, it’s an email.
My niece and nephew (college age) seem to be incommunicado most of the time - they don’t answer texts or emails, rarely answer the phone, and don’t even have USPS mailboxes. It’s hard to coordinate with the.
Which is a pretty rational thing in general, IMO. You use it only when you must for employment purposes.Obviously very emergency situations are different (presuming he doesn’t have some kind of filter where he never sees those texts at all), but I think it’s entirely reasonable for him to generally refuse a communication medium that he doesn’t like. It is his own problem if he misses out, but I don’t find it an asshole move. Particularly as some absolutely do keep bugging a person if they don’t respond quickly.
The majority of people are chained to their phones. The minority are very loud about not being chained to their phones. Also, this board skews older who are probably less smartphone engaged/dependent. A lot of folks are retired as well, which means the real or imagined urgency of immediate responses to messages (whether email, SMS of other platforms) is felt less. I know if I left my phone on the kitchen counter and went out for a four hour walk on a Saturday afternoon, if my boss sent me a question, and I didn’t respond for 2+ hours, she’d be quite unhappy. Whether that’s right or wrong is irrelevant. It’s been the reality in ALL the jobs I’ve had since before smartphones were a thing (with a BlackBerry).
Given that he was very pissed that no one dropped him an email, I’d say it’s a very asshole move.
You don’t want to communicate the way 90% of people do? You miss out on information. You don’t get to tell your mother or sister they must conform to your preferences.
No one is sending him cat videos or chitchat. At least not his parents or siblings. He wants other people to do things his way. Or he throws his toys out of the pram.
I would not take this board as a representative sample of the US. This board skews older with a large vocal contingent who love to talk about their dislike and disdain for modern technology.
Non snarky question. How do they communicate?
How do they communicate- or is it that they don’t? My Gen Y relatives will only text. If I were to call, they expect to hear that I’m announcing a death. They read them - they don’t always reply but that’s because they are usually being asked if they are coming to a holiday dinner or a BBQ and they don’t want to commit until they absolutely have to.
I find an awful lot of the time, it’s that second part that’s a problem. And there’s a related one that I see a lot, where someone complains that their (boss/co-workers) always use phone call/text/email while the person only wants to use one of the other methods. Every time I see or hear of someone complaining " My boss insists on calling me, how can I get her to text?" , I wonder if that person actually understands hierarchy.
I neither dislike nor disdain modern tech – I just can’t justify spending the money for a smartphone when I already have a computer, a phone, and a camera. A few years ago I saw a pocket watch I would have loved to have, but I couldn’t justify buying it, even at 40% off – my phone already functions has a pocket watch (which is in fact the main reason I use it).
Our (very tiny) company uses texting way too much.
I have tried to steer company communications to email, but with little success.
The problem with texting is: it’s not threaded. So, when a question arises some months later, finding the conversation addressing the issue in the texts is like looking for a needle in an entire field of hay.
They absolutely don’t. I cannot tell you how many times Mrs. Cad has texted to see if the younglings want us to babysit our granddaughter and get ghosted.
They’re telling him that he must conform to theirs, though.
Give yourself a treat! Your last shirt will have no pockets.
They are telling him to communicate the way 90+% of the population does or be left out. The world is not the Dope.
He actually expected my mother to send an email to him about my father being rushed to the hospital, rather than you know, reading a group text on the device he’s carrying in his hand.
That’s some special snowflake shit right there.