The idea that people who don’t want to be texted in the middle of the night should take the responsibility of changing their phone settings to accommodate people who feel entitled to instant access to everyone at all times reminds me of the famous thread where the telemarketer proposed that people who don’t want to be bothered by sales calls should just get rid of their phone.
My phone serves me, not you, so I expect you to be aware of things like common courtesy.
And I am surprised both that controlling one’s own electronic device settings is perceived to be a great burden, and that transmitting written communications at certain times is perceived as rude. Do you care when people send you an e-mail?
Look, there’s a natural difference between speaking and writing, and exploiting this difference is the precise reason that text messaging on cell phones has value.
Spoken communication naturally exists in a shared moment, actively reciprocal. Spoken conversation does not happen if one person isn’t listening when the other is speaking. A telephone call is thus, inherently, a demand for immediate attention. (Voice mail, like any sound recording, loses the distinct qualities of shared moment and reciprocality; though audible, it is functionally more like writing.) Of course nobody shuts off their telephone ringer at night; if somebody has to call you at night, it’s important and you want to be awakened.
Written communications are not in a shared moment. I compose my piece first, then transmit it, then you read it. It doesn’t necessarily make a difference if you read it immediately; the message is still conveyed if you read it ten minutes, or two hours, later. An e-mail or a text does not inherently demand attention the way that someone speaking to you, or calling you on the phone, does.
If you’re using text messaging as simply a kind of non-audible telephone calling–reading every text right away, expecting yours to be read right away, conducting awkward extended conversations by texts back and forth–you’re basically depriving yourself of the point of having two different means of communication enabled on the same device; you’re using them the same way.
See, there it is. Sending you a text message is not feeling “entitled to instant access.” It is the opposite; a text message allows you to choose when you give it attention.
Uh, no.
My phone is on vibrate almost 100% of the time. It won’t wake me up. I’m not so self-important as to think there’s anything I need to be available to attend to at 3 AM. I’m also sort of shocked by how many people don’t already turn their phones off at night. What kind of emergency are you expecting anyway?
My 17 year old son and I just had this discussion, and I now stop and think before texting.
Of course, the text that woke him and got him pissy was sent 11:30 am on Sunday.
I think they’re an anytime thing. However, I probably wouldn’t send them much out of calling hours anyway, because I know that other people don’t share my opinion. It’d depend somewhat on the person, too; I have one friend who I know sleeps lightly and leaves text notifications on. I wouldn’t text him in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency.
Conversely, I’ll sleep through small noises. And, honestly, after seven years in a job where my phone needed to be silent during working hours, the ringer is seldom on anyway (much to the consternation of those who want to call me, but, honestly, anyone who knows me knows that Skype or IM is a much safer bet). Text me anytime. I’ll get to it when I’m awake.
I use texts differently than phones or emails. For long, non-urgent communication, it’s usually email, for communication that requires a detailed back-and-forth exchange, I call, and for quick one-off questions that don’t necessitate a conversation but for which I need an expedient answer, I text. If it’s not at all time-sensitive, I just send an email instead.
I agree. Among grown-ups who work days, unexpected texts between 1:00am and 6:00am should generally involve death or dying.
I put my phone on silent every night. I often get email in the middle of the night from various companies I’ve done business with; sales, special offers, etc. Am I the only one?
I use an alarm clock, not my phone to wake me. I do see where it would be a PITA if I needed to keep my phone on to receive emergency/work calls.
I don’t think the text==phone call comparison is a accurate. Receiving a phone call requires action on your part, a text does not.
Yeah, I can’t choose on my phone.
I vote wait. There’s a chance you’ll forget, but it’s not justification for inconveniencing someone.
My daughter used to text me early in the morning, before she went to work. When she’s at work, she can’t text or call. She thought I’d have my phone turned off until I got up. When I told her I leave it on all the time, she stopped.
So do you turn off email notifications at night? Or do you expect everyone who has your email address to not email you when you’re asleep? Do you feel comfortable sending an email at 1:00 am or are all forms of communication forbidden between midnight and 6:00 am?
I’m not emailing anyone in the middle of the night anyway, and my phone’s default settings have never made a sound for emails. The default settings do, however, make a sound for texts… fascinating, that.
Apples and oranges. Email doesn’t go to the recipient’s phone by default. Text messages do.
Almost everyone I would text would be awake at midnight, so that’s not an issue. But more to the point, a text isn’t necessarily stupid, just non-urgent. Most of the time, an immediate response to a text isn’t necessary. The point is, you have the choice whether or not to be notified of a message at any given time. Hell, on modern phones you can set different notifications for different people, so would only be woken at 2am by someone you wanted to hear from.
Honestly, to complain that you are woken by a sound from your phone because you didn’t change the setting is no less ridiculous than complaining that you were woken by your alarm clock at 5am on saturday because you left it on. It’s your device, you need to set it to work how you want it.
Free yourself from default settings! Own your devices! 
So I should unplug my land line at night so people can feel free to call me whenever they want?
Texting hours are somewhat more relaxed than phone hours, but not a free-for-all because for most people they do make noise and it’s rude to do something you have a reasonable expectation will make noise when you have a reasonable expectation someone will be asleep. The exact hours in question depend on the person in question and what sort of schedule they keep.
And tbth, middle-of-the-night texts are just dumb. If it’s urgent and you need an answer now, call and be sure the person in question gets the message. If it’s not urgent, it could wait equally well until morning to call, text or email. And if you’ll have forgotten by then…well, it can’t have been all that important and share-worthy, could it?
Rigamarole, in my case the emergency I’m expecting is for my dad or grandpa to have a fatal heart attack or stroke–they’re both vascular accidents waiting to happen. And if my Mom calls me from the ER, it’ll be on her cell and the first of my numbers programmed into her cell phone is…wait for it…my cell. And when I was working at the vet clinic, gods only knew what kind of emergency you were likely to have turn up in the wee hours. Hit by cars, c-sections, bloats, popped-out eyeballs, I’ve gotten calls to come help with all of them after midnight.
I’m not changing the settings on my phone every night and morning. I shouldn’t have to and it’s not going to happen. If somebody texts me at odd hours of the night I’ll ask them to stop. This should solve the problem because I try not to give my number to total assholes. Note that I’m not saying anybody who sends me a late night/early morning text is an asshole but I think somebody who keeps doing it, even after being asked not to, is.
No, because there is a different expectation there. If a land line phone rings at stupid o’clock, people assume it’s an emergency, and abusing that is not a good thing to do. However, most people (in my experience) don’t treat texting that way. I assume this is mainly because one can choose when and if you receive text notifications. The big difference is that if you miss a phone call, it’s missed, but if you miss a text it’s still there.
It’s been probably nine years since I’ve had a phone that didn’t receive email and give a notification, and probably four years since I’ve had a phone that didn’t immediately prompt me to set up an email account straight out of the box.
But this has me curious. I’d be interested in finding out the usage habits of the people who think it’s rude. If you think it’s rude to send a text at 1:00 am, do you own a smartphone? Do you use your phone for email, IM, appointment reminders, or anything other than talk and text? Does your phone frequently and regularly give you notifications throughout the day and night? Or is it mostly silent except when you’re receiving calls and texts?
I know for me personally, my phone is alerting me of *something *probably every 15-30 minutes, 24-hours a day. I get an alert when a trouble ticket comes in, or even when a friend or co-worker logs into IM. So even if I didn’t get any texts at all between midnight and 6:00 am, my phone would still be making plenty of noise all night long if I didn’t turn sounds off. So it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if a friend’s late-night text was added to the mix. And since most of my friends are like me, they wouldn’t mind either.
Text whenever you want. I don’t keep my cell phone in the bedroom, but will hear the ringer if the phone rings. I won’t hear the text beep, so it won’t wake me up. Anyone who would call me with a true emergency knows the landline number anyways, and I use an alarm clock to wake up (or the hungry cats!)