Why Do People Still Text
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
All that said - in a delayed notification situation, I completely agree that email is likely best - though chat clients that tell the sender that a message has been read is something I like a lot more than relying on email read relies, which most people disable (just stating a personal appreciation of that tech)
It's the emergency to think about. When you HAVE to get a message to someone... knowing that they read it, hearing their voice... these are less critical concerns. What matters most in an emergency is maximizing the chance that the information will arrive. Email has the most reliably delivery, going to more devices, people, places and overcoming more technical obstacles than any other mechanism. It doesn't trust that one person or one device or one moment in time is the right one. That's what makes it so powerful, combined with being able to deliver concise information quickly. It also overcomes the majority of issues for people with disabilities. The deaf, for example, can't use a telephone for emergencies, it is too slow and often doesn't work.
Using a phone call to tell someone to check their email, sure. When we have emergencies at work, we always stop until we get it in writing. Any phone call first would simply tell us that it's not really that important. A phone call to verify that we are seeing the email that was already sent, sure. But calling to tell us what we need to have written down is just wasting time.
I'm not undercutting the value of email at all - but I know many would disagree that calling when the system is emergent was a waste of time. If you're at a ER check in desk and you need to get a doctor up front ASAP, you're calling his ass - or paging/SMS - calling in this case would be MUCH better because you know if they answer they are coming (or not) - with paging - you have no clue what their situation is - and no bloody way in hell is any desk staff going to sit down and type up an email to that doc and press send hoping they will get their ass there ASAP.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
All that said - in a delayed notification situation, I completely agree that email is likely best - though chat clients that tell the sender that a message has been read is something I like a lot more than relying on email read relies, which most people disable (just stating a personal appreciation of that tech)
It's the emergency to think about. When you HAVE to get a message to someone... knowing that they read it, hearing their voice... these are less critical concerns. What matters most in an emergency is maximizing the chance that the information will arrive. Email has the most reliably delivery, going to more devices, people, places and overcoming more technical obstacles than any other mechanism. It doesn't trust that one person or one device or one moment in time is the right one. That's what makes it so powerful, combined with being able to deliver concise information quickly. It also overcomes the majority of issues for people with disabilities. The deaf, for example, can't use a telephone for emergencies, it is too slow and often doesn't work.
Using a phone call to tell someone to check their email, sure. When we have emergencies at work, we always stop until we get it in writing. Any phone call first would simply tell us that it's not really that important. A phone call to verify that we are seeing the email that was already sent, sure. But calling to tell us what we need to have written down is just wasting time.
Now, in your case as being a MSP, and hell, for the CYA of any IT person - I can see your point in saying that nothing should be accomplished without that CYA email, but seriously - typing up an email with all the details might take several mins - a phone call can convey the notion that the ABC that is critical is down - get working on it... and assuming you answer the call, they know you know, and you can start working on it... but if they email you - they have to wait for you to get that email, that could be now, that could be 3 hours from now when you next check your email.
Now, again, in your MSP - you likely have staff who's job it is to sit on that email queue for x-y hours, so you're less likely to have an email go mins, let alone hours without being seen.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
Because people still aren't thinking about how messages are actually delivered and made available.
Qualifying @Dashrender as someone who thinks about how messages are delivered is a stretch. . . He appreciates modern approaches to modern messaging solutions (like iMessage, which isn't truly SMS).
Read receipts from email are dumb and worthless. Texting is also generally worthless as I've sent SMS that say "delivered" and the recipient never got them, or I never get their message.
Email communication is at least reliable from the try-again and error reporting functionality, but it's not a barn-burner type of communication method other than as you stated as an MSP you need things in writing.
Precisely
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City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
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When I receive an Amber Alert on my iPhone is that a SMS?
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@black3dynamite I'm not sure, but I would guess so. What I know is that the SMS for these gets copied to my desktop so I see them happen there, too. That's how I know that the weather ones are SMS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
We'll it's not like the city has everyone's email address, and if they did, not like everyone would see or be alerted of the email. The best way is via a phone feature all phones have that can alarm and alert, outside of sms.
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@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
We'll it's not like the city has everyone's email address, and if they did, not like everyone would see or be alerted of the email. The best way is via a phone feature all phones have that can alarm and alert, outside of sms.
SMS signals are more likely to be assured than a phone call I'm guessing. As far as I know, the cell company keeps trying for at least a while to get SMS messages through until an unknown timer expires or the mobile confirms receipt.
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@Obsolesce said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
City texts at 5:30 that there is a tornado emergency and you should shelter in place till 6:45. Message arrives at 6:32. Real useful warning system.
We'll it's not like the city has everyone's email address, and if they did, not like everyone would see or be alerted of the email. The best way is via a phone feature all phones have that can alarm and alert, outside of sms.
SMS signals are more likely to be assured than a phone call I'm guessing. As far as I know, the cell company keeps trying for at least a while to get SMS messages through until an unknown timer expires or the mobile confirms receipt.
I never mentioned phone calls...
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After a week of solid Internet but almost no working texting, I'm reminded of this topic. Telegram, Signal, What'sapp, Cliq, Slack, email all have worked but texting has not.
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@VoIP_n00b said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
no working texting
Why?
Some places the mobile/cell network resembles a pirate convention... patches everywhere.
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Seems appropriate:
https://xkcd.com/2365/ -
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
After a week of solid Internet but almost no working texting, I'm reminded of this topic. Telegram, Signal, What'sapp, Cliq, Slack, email all have worked but texting has not.
What, the country doesn't support it? or your vendor didn't support it or you didn't want to pay ridiculous SMS fees for international SMS?
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@nadnerB said in Why Do People Still Text:
Seems appropriate:
https://xkcd.com/2365/LOL - a very western view
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@Dashrender said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
After a week of solid Internet but almost no working texting, I'm reminded of this topic. Telegram, Signal, What'sapp, Cliq, Slack, email all have worked but texting has not.
What, the country doesn't support it? or your vendor didn't support it or you didn't want to pay ridiculous SMS fees for international SMS?
Who knows. But while having "SMS service", texting didn't work. I paid for the service. It was enabled. But texts couldn't get through. Same for other people there, too.
Just a technology that isn't reliable, is the bottom line.
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@VoIP_n00b said in Why Do People Still Text:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Do People Still Text:
no working texting
Why?
Because when you send a text, the person doesn't receive it.
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I text because it makes my heart happy.
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My update since I now live in a country that is, for all intents and purposes, text free.
Life in Central America really highlights how much I don't text. Someone asked me last week about my stance on texting, assuming that I'd given up and embraced it in the fourteen years since he and I had first discussed how poor of a platform it is. But if anything, it's the opposite. I truly avoid it at a whole new level.
First, I routinely don't keep my phone with me during the work day and I have nothing that shows me texts on my desktop or alerts me if they come in. If I am getting a text via 2FA I know to go grab the phone. If someone is just texting me instead of using a secure messaging app that works on my desktop (everything but texting does work there now that WhatsApp uses the desktop, too) or email then they don't know me and aren't taking their messaging choices very seriously. If they don't care, why would I?
Second, often my phone dies during the day. I don't charge it at my desk. So if it is off, only things that work when my phone is off will get to me.
Third, while my Internet is super strong here, my cell phone signal is not. I live in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. If I am out and about there is a lot of coverage gaps. So texting isn't very reliable for me even if I am actively looking at it.
Four, Tmobile totally killed my Android phone a few weeks ago and it really highlighted how terrible it would be if I had had a dependency on texting to communicate. Luckily because I don't, I was only inconvenienced and still able to function. All my conversations continued.
Five, while SMS within the US has gotten a lot faster than when I used to test it years ago, messages to other places still take forever. Routinely an MMS message to a friend in Belgium would take three hours to send, and untold time to be delivered. Carrying on a conversation was useless. So by the time I get a text, typically we would have already worked around it.
Six, texting isn't free here and texting between carriers is not open. No one does it. No one. I've not seen a single text sent or received by anyone in six months. It's a totally old, dead technology here. Everyone is on encrypted, modern messaging apps and has been for many years... at least six years because it was like this here in 2015, too. Even phone calls are essentially dead here. People call on things like WhatsApp because it is free and works on any connection.
