My wife and I don’t text outside of emergencies. We typically receive a handful of texts from friends and family, and pay $.20 for each one. But never enough to make the minimum ($5/month) texting plan worthwhile. We haven’t disabled texting on our phones for the aforementioned emergencies, and because other people text us sometimes and we don’t want to miss their messages without them knowing it.
The upshot is, every text becomes an annoyance, because, “poof!” there goes 20 cents. Sometimes people text 4 or 5 times in a row to fit in all they have to say and a dollar goes out the window. An email would have been free, you know?
Is there a good way to say: “please don’t text me”? without sounding like a curmudgeon?
Honestly, I don’t understand why you don’t simply say that. I’ve been asked not to text a specific friend of mine, and I wasn’t offended at all. People who are going to be offended by such a reasonable request – one that literally requires no effort on their part – are going to get pissed over something else trivial anyway.
OTOH, texting is so common now, asking someone not to text you could almost be read as being asked not to call them.
OTOOH, if you give them a good reason, they might understand though. “If you need me, just give me a call or email me, I get charged a quarter for each incoming text”
“Why don’t you switch to an unlimited plan then?”
“Oh, the wife and I only text each other about 2 or 3 times a month so it’s really not worth it.”
I’m sure plenty of people will come along to say you should just tell them not to text you and you shouldn’t have to explain yourself and if you DO have to explain yourself they they aren’t really friends (I never cared for that POV but I seem to run across it alot here)
IMO, you are going to have to give some reasonable excuse if you don’t want to offend anyone. Like I said, it’s so common, it’s going to be akin to asking someone to stop calling and people (without some kind of good reason) are going to take it personally.
What emergency would people need to text you but couldn’t call? ‘Help my tongue was ripped out?’
I don’t pay for a text plan. Occasionally people text me. Rarely do I respond with a text. I just call them and tell them I don’t answer texts so if they need to talk they should call me. Then if they text me again I don’t even respond to them.
I blocked texting on my father and mother in laws phones. They seem to get by fine.
I have seven brothers & sisters. The last time I had to take our father was in the hospital, I sent a single text to all of them to let them know rather than calling them individually, dealing with voice mails, etc. That would qualify as an emergency, I think.
Usually don’t you get billed for a text only if you open it and read it?
Assuming this is the case for your phone, I would probably just leave teh text unopened and then call the person to ask what they wanted.
But seriously, “Stuck in a meeting until 6. Can you pick up the kids?” would be the typical sort.
It’s not so much a worry of offense, but a way to say it without sounding like: “Dude, you just cost me 50 cents. Stop it.” A way to say it without sounding like we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. For the people who text us, I’m sure it’s 2nd nature, and they haven’t the foggiest that they are inconveniencing us. I don’t want them to feel bad about having cost us (a small amount of money) or worse, offer to pay for it. Nor do I want them to feel like their being accused of something heinous when it’s really just a small amount of money.
hence the reason why thus far, I’ve just kept my mouth shut and sucked it up.
Don’t do anything. When someone asks why you didn’t respond to their text, tell them you don’t text. People can be trained like dogs, so they’ll pick it up pretty quickly.
For instance, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I know there are certain people for whom leaving a voicemail is useless. But if I text them, I’ll probably get a response back in minutes.
I don’t think so. I called T-Mobile about that a few years ago because someone was harassing me via text and I was paying per text, and they said it doesn’t matter if you open it, and that my only options were to call the police (good plan :rolleyes:), pay to change my number, or get an unlimited texting plan. Very helpful.
But anyway, I think it’s easy to tell people that you pay per text and so it’s very limited.
The reason is money. I don’t think there has to be a justification. A commodity is worth what people are willing to pay for it. If more people would revolt, and if a single large provider were to use making texts (and incoming calls) free as a way to draw in customers, we’d say a change. But most people are complacent and it’s in the rational self-interest of all the cell providers not to rock the boat, as the ultimate result of, say, Verizon forcing the issue would be for all of them to make less money in the long wrong.
Nobody has ever accused me of being a particularly thrifty guy, but if your text use is costing you less than $5 a month, I think you should proceed with your current course of (in)action. If someone starts texting you excessively, it’s certainly appropriate to tell them that you prefer an email or phone call because you pay per text, but that doesn’t seem to be the case right now.
I mean, you’re well within your rights to share that information with everyone now, but you will come across as a bit antiquated. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you will give that impression to most people who would text you.
That was my thought. You’re getting so few texts that it doesn’t warrant a $5/month plan? What are you out on a bad month? $3? What’s the big deal?
That’s just my perspective, of course, and you can feel however you’d like. But people text these days. If I got such a request from a friend, I would honor it, it wouldn’t stop me from being their friend, but I would roll my eyes a little (to myself). “Stratocaster, those texts last night cost me sixty cents. At this rate I might have to give in and spend $5 a month. Just sayin’.”
Skald’s advice is fine if you want this to stop. But be prepared to have people think it a bit odd.
“But people text these days.” Well, I guess, but no one I know does. Not to me, not to each other. Yes, I see people (mostly kids) doing it all over the place. Me and my buds, we e-mail, we call, we meet for lunch. But we don’t text. (And that word “texted” would put me off if I ever did want to “text”.)
Hell, I watch my 14 year old nephew exchanging 1-2 word texts with his friends and think “I wonder how long that would last if he had to pay 20 cents apiece for those conversational masterpieces…”
That’s how I’d take a request not to text. I send/receive dozens of texts each day. I make a call or three each week. I hate talking on the phone. Facebook messaging is another option.
I don’t have text plan, but have figured most months I end up ahead. It doesn’t bother me at all to exchange texts with my friends who have old-style phones, but I really don’t understand why my friends with smartphones are still using SMS when IM works virtually exactly the same way and is free. I say it’s the texters who are the Luddites, not the textophobes.
If you want to communicate through the written word, send an email or a fax. Quit pretending that your phone is a typewriter.
I never send texts, and, except for unusual situations, I hate receiving texts. A phone is for CALLING people. An acquaintance once sent me a text, and I flat-out told him “Don’t do that again.”
When I become Dictator of the World, I will ban the sale of cell phones that can do anything other than making and receiving calls. If you want to do something other than a phone call, you shouldn’t be using a phone.
