Why Do People Still Text
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Yep, It doesn't matter what kind of phone you have, what carrier you're on, where you live.. anywhere in the world.. if I know your phone number I can SMS you..
But that you can or that you do are not the same. If one person is harassing me, I can block them. When it is socially acceptable to page people for normal conversation, you cannot. Not acceptably, anyway.
This is a failing that so few people run into, and an update to the SMS client has been so infrequently requested that these types muted features haven't been added.
I'm not sure how you'd block a person in email any more than in SMSing and not just completely miss the message?
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Keep in mind I only posted this here today because @Dashrender was wondering about my historic ranting about SMS, not because I felt that we needed to dig into it
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I want a cell phone less for those locations and more for when I'm out and about.
Exactly isn't that what cell phones are for?
That was my point - additionally Scott was talking about his provider providing VOIP on the device when the device couldn't get good cellular single, but he was only offering assured good cellular signal when he was at specific known good locations, i.e. work or home.
My suggestion of the Asterisk was the wrong approach because Scott's right, people want a single device that works everywhere, and t-mobile is working to provide that by providing the VOIP solution to their service. My retort is that VOIP doesn't solve the real problem, sure it solves it if you have bad cellular connections at home and or work, but those places are places that provide many options to you already since you're in a known static location.... That is why I asked about using VOIP in places like Starbucks.. that's when the use of VOIP would be extremely good to have, because if the normal cellular network doesn't work, and the VOIP network doesn't work at Starbucks either.. then you're just SOL and not connected, i.e. no better off.
It pretty much works anywhere you can get WiFi, which is the awesome bit. Sure you can use standard VoIP too, but that doesn't work over a lot of carrier signals.
But unless you are in the city wifi isn't everywhere.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm not sure how you'd block a person in email any more than in SMSing and not just completely miss the message?
Oh if someone is abusively using email, I'll just block them and miss everything. Either that or have HR deal with it. Or both.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I want a cell phone less for those locations and more for when I'm out and about.
Exactly isn't that what cell phones are for?
That was my point - additionally Scott was talking about his provider providing VOIP on the device when the device couldn't get good cellular single, but he was only offering assured good cellular signal when he was at specific known good locations, i.e. work or home.
My suggestion of the Asterisk was the wrong approach because Scott's right, people want a single device that works everywhere, and t-mobile is working to provide that by providing the VOIP solution to their service. My retort is that VOIP doesn't solve the real problem, sure it solves it if you have bad cellular connections at home and or work, but those places are places that provide many options to you already since you're in a known static location.... That is why I asked about using VOIP in places like Starbucks.. that's when the use of VOIP would be extremely good to have, because if the normal cellular network doesn't work, and the VOIP network doesn't work at Starbucks either.. then you're just SOL and not connected, i.e. no better off.
It pretty much works anywhere you can get WiFi, which is the awesome bit. Sure you can use standard VoIP too, but that doesn't work over a lot of carrier signals.
But unless you are in the city wifi isn't everywhere.
That's why you use the carrier signals. It's about having double the coverage.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
That really just sounds like an issue of not having good work/life separation even in the electronic world. Don't use the same phone for work and personal. If you have to at least setup different notification tones for the two.
That's what I said. I want better work/life separation. I don't want to have to carry multiple devices, always be on high alert, etc. Two tones, okay, that might work, but two devices, that's not okay. We are getting worse not better there.
you need a dual SIM phone, work number home number, and dual tones for SMS, or at least the ability to mute your personal SMS's and check then when you want - and treat it exactly how you would treat FB chat on your phone - just ignore until you want/have time to respond.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I want a cell phone less for those locations and more for when I'm out and about.
Exactly isn't that what cell phones are for?
That was my point - additionally Scott was talking about his provider providing VOIP on the device when the device couldn't get good cellular single, but he was only offering assured good cellular signal when he was at specific known good locations, i.e. work or home.
My suggestion of the Asterisk was the wrong approach because Scott's right, people want a single device that works everywhere, and t-mobile is working to provide that by providing the VOIP solution to their service. My retort is that VOIP doesn't solve the real problem, sure it solves it if you have bad cellular connections at home and or work, but those places are places that provide many options to you already since you're in a known static location.... That is why I asked about using VOIP in places like Starbucks.. that's when the use of VOIP would be extremely good to have, because if the normal cellular network doesn't work, and the VOIP network doesn't work at Starbucks either.. then you're just SOL and not connected, i.e. no better off.
It pretty much works anywhere you can get WiFi, which is the awesome bit. Sure you can use standard VoIP too, but that doesn't work over a lot of carrier signals.
But unless you are in the city wifi isn't everywhere.
That's why you use the carrier signals. It's about having double the coverage.
But T-Mobile doesn't have coverage here either so...
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
So we're back to wanting a whitelist function in the email client that allows notification if an email comes in from a specific address. This will be a much easier thing to provide than trying to get the masses to stop using texting for non emergent things.
I agree and I've seen companies do that. Problem is is that paging, in theory, is a level above and beyond that. It allows true emergency pages - like from a hospital or something, where someone only has your phone number. Or they have your email but are not the emergency whitelist person. In the past, anyone could alert you, but people didn't do it frivolously. It's become socially acceptable to page everyone all the time.
What do doctors do these days?
Sadly, my docs all carry old school pagers... more because pagers seem to get messages more reliably than cell phones do nearly anywhere.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I want a cell phone less for those locations and more for when I'm out and about.
Exactly isn't that what cell phones are for?
That was my point - additionally Scott was talking about his provider providing VOIP on the device when the device couldn't get good cellular single, but he was only offering assured good cellular signal when he was at specific known good locations, i.e. work or home.
My suggestion of the Asterisk was the wrong approach because Scott's right, people want a single device that works everywhere, and t-mobile is working to provide that by providing the VOIP solution to their service. My retort is that VOIP doesn't solve the real problem, sure it solves it if you have bad cellular connections at home and or work, but those places are places that provide many options to you already since you're in a known static location.... That is why I asked about using VOIP in places like Starbucks.. that's when the use of VOIP would be extremely good to have, because if the normal cellular network doesn't work, and the VOIP network doesn't work at Starbucks either.. then you're just SOL and not connected, i.e. no better off.
It pretty much works anywhere you can get WiFi, which is the awesome bit. Sure you can use standard VoIP too, but that doesn't work over a lot of carrier signals.
Really? so you've found that you can use the VOIP fuction of t-mobiles phones over pretty much any wifi you've run across? As I keep mentioning with Starbucks (and McDonald's, and several other places that claim to provide free wifi) that I can barely surf the web.. downloading just email is almost unbearable. I can't imagine in those places the VOIP would work.
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@Dashrender said:
Really? so you've found that you can use the VOIP fuction of t-mobiles phones over pretty much any wifi you've run across? As I keep mentioning with Starbucks (and McDonald's, and several other places that claim to provide free wifi) that I can barely surf the web.. downloading just email is almost unbearable. I can't imagine in those places the VOIP would work.
More or less. I don't try too often, it's rarely needed. But yes, it generally works fine.
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@scottalanmiller said:
This would be my summary:
- Scott's right, SMS isn't email, but for a lot of people that's ok
- Scott's very persistent with his thoughts, theories and opinions which makes him equal parts fantastic and frustrating to discuss stuff with
- There is no proposed solution here other than beating everyone about the face with a trout, ala monte python.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
OK and because you don't want to take SMS away, then you can't solve this problem - because you can't prevent people from using text messages.
Right, that's the issue, because people use SMS instead of email or IM, we now need another paging system for paging because the paging system has been stolen from us
And that one will be co opted as well once people find out how to get message there to get their 'important' ones through. It's a never ending cycle.
Ah no, because you can block them instantly. It's only when it is family and friends and strongly considered social inappropriate to block them that it is a problem. If it was people at work, blocking would be obvious and repercussions would be likely.
Why is blocking SMS considers inappropriate? I've done it, and if it was a problem I'd do it again.
Back before SMS'ing was imbedded in the price (it's not really free) I would practically scream at people who texted me because they were spending my money... needless to say I didn't get many text messages.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I probably get around 50 text a day, probably less... I don't get so many that I ignore them when I hear them... You on the other hand probably get 1000 texts a day.. so I can see the problem you have.
Oh no, I get relatively few. I'm very big on moving people to other channels and no extra alerts because I need real alerts to get through. I'm sure I've gotten 50 in a day, but I use texting as little as possible and respond slowly to being texted so it discourages it. I really do respond via email and do other things to slow it down.
I get crazy numbers of messages per day, but I do manage to keep the text on the low side.
Then why do you need to use PagerDuty?
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@Dashrender said:
Then why do you need to use PagerDuty?
Because it HAS to reach me when that goes off. I need to know to drop everything. It hits my PD, SMS and email all at the same time.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Then why do you need to use PagerDuty?
Because it HAS to reach me when that goes off. I need to know to drop everything. It hits my PD, SMS and email all at the same time.
So is that more a problem of you don't trust SMSing or email enough, so you pay to ensure you are notified by as many options as possible?
If you're not filled up with worthless SMSs why aren't SMSs considered critical by you?
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@Dashrender said:
So is that more a problem of you don't trust SMSing or email enough, so you pay to ensure you are notified by as many options as possible?
Because they both get traffic all day. If everything went to email AND SMS was exclusively for notifying me that an emergency email had arrived, that would be all I needed.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
So is that more a problem of you don't trust SMSing or email enough, so you pay to ensure you are notified by as many options as possible?
Because they both get traffic all day. If everything went to email AND SMS was exclusively for notifying me that an emergency email had arrived, that would be all I needed.
I'm sorry, what both get traffic all day? SMS and email? but you just got through telling me you don't get 50 a day that are non emergent, so you get 49? so that's to much cruf to trust that the beeping is for an emergent issue?
There as to be a number of non emergent SMSs you can get mixed in with your emergent ones where it wouldn't be worth the effort of them not being there.50 during a normal 9 hour work day (8-5) would be an average of one ever 11 mins... OK thinking you are getting a critical SMS every 11 mins when lets assume you are only really getting one every 90 mins, Ok that's to much. But if you manged to get the SMS's down to two to one, or one non emergent message every 45 mins or so.. we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
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If you are already using pager duty why can't you just move all urgent things to that and use SMS for short messages the get something that would otherwise be a pointless call.
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Good timing on this thread. Someone that I know in Ohio attempted to text me twice on Monday night. The texts sent and went through on their end, never arrived on my end. Two days later they have no indication that anything failed, on my end there is no indication of a message having ever been sent at all. We have texts both before and after in the same conversation, but on there end there are more messages.
While email can have delivery problems, I've never seen it fail "mid conversation" with no indication on either end that something is wrong. This is a case where the failure is completely, from what I can tell, with the carriers.
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As if to support my concerns, for the first time ever, my iPhone went into salt water and has been completely dead for two days and I will have no means of getting a replacement for two weeks. Anyone relying on texting me or something similar to texting that relies on communicating "to my device" rather than "to a person" (texting, What's App, Kik, etc.) have no way to know why I am not responding and cannot reach me nor I them. Thankfully I'm very opposed to texting and generally avoid this stuff so nearly anyone reaching me that way has an alternative method (Skype, email, Facebook, etc.) But it is times like this, when you are traveling, completely lose a phone, etc. where reaching people is often most critical when these technologies that are focused on the device rather than the person are most vulnerable.
