I'm quite certain I never liked communicating over SMS. I have to admit that texting occupied a great deal of my life growing up, but that doesn't stop me from hating it. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I started using GrandCentral now that I have a desk phone, two BlackBerry's and my good old cell phone. This made me re-realise how much I hate text messaging.
When we were younger, for some reason it seemed to us that texting was cheaper than directly calling the person and I remember sending an SMS to learn the whereabouts of my friends when they were late to the movies. Trust me it was time consuming; go to Menu, then Messages/Create new message, type the message, wait until the guy receives and responds to your text. How can this be faster then just calling the dude? Anyways that's not the point. On the plus side, practice really made perfect; we were really fast typing on the dial pad (Remember, my childhood were the times before T9 or any other text prediction was introduced). Soon, cell phones and SMS became the greatest cheating device - we could text without looking at the phone under the desk
So why do I have so much hatred now that I'm all "grown up"? Now that I'm paying for my own phone bill, I find the charges unacceptably high. Whether you have a texting plan or not, I think it's really expensive. Aside from that I still think they are slow. Actually, come to think about it, if you have a BlackBerry, it's not slower then typing an email, but did I tell you SMS is extremely unreliable?
Here is my breakdown:
- Doesn't guarantee that the message will be delivered (at least I have come across a lot of cases where the message was not delivered).
- You can only RECEIVE on your cell phone.
- You can only SEND TO a cell phone.
- You can't redirect your text messages if your phone's battery dies (or any other reason for that matter).
2 comments:
i'm the complete opposite - i adore text messaging and it breaks my heart that i can't find a provider willing to let me use a non-sidekick device for only data w/no phone plan. calling people is rarely the fastest way for me to reach them because during the day they are often in a location where they can't or don't want to answer the phone (at work on the phone, in meetings, out to lunch/dinner, on the bus, with other people, etc.) similarly i rarely answer the phone because most of the time i'm in a situation where i can't answer it.
when people leave me voicemail it just frustrates me because i have to pick up the phone and call in and listen and often i'm in a situation where i can't do that.
i'd hate text messaging if my phone was t9, but i have a full qwerty and both my hands fit on it. so i type very quickly on it. prolly not my normal 115wpmish, but quite quickly all the same.
i pay $15/month for unlimited text messages (tho i only actually receive/send a total of 2,500/month.)
so that's about 1/2 a penny per message, which i don't consider unreasonably priced. but then again i am a high volume user (in addition to messaging friends, i use it for twitter, dodgeball, googling businesses/directions/weather, and a bunch of other stuff.
my phone is 2 years old (the tmobile mda/htc wizard) and it allows me to redirect messages either to another phone number or to an email address if they don't go through, if my battery dies, or if i just save them as 'draft' 'cause i don't feel like sending them right then.
i haven't had any issues w/text messages not being delivered tho... but if it's an important msg i'll usually send via text and cc their email
T-mobile's supposed to come up with a email-only/data-only/no phone plan for BlackBerry, but then I guess you're not a BlackBerry person, shame on you!
My real hatered for SMS is I don't really have a place to save them either. I love emails, I can reach them from anywhere. IM has a loss in that respect too, only Google Talk automatically saves them with your Gmail crap.
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