A Case for Text Messaging

I have never been a fan of using text messaging. That being said, I do recognize that it is a prevalent form of communication and use it when necessary. Today I have discovered a case where text messaging beats other forms of communication and have been using it for that.

Before continuing I should share why I hate texting. I am a fast typist and prefer to use a full-sized keyboard instead of a tiny one on my phone's screen. That is one reason my personal computer is a Mac. It seamlessly allows me to see and respond to my phone's messages on my computer. When someone sends me a message, I can use that full-sized keyboard to respond. Furthermore I don't have to take my phone out of my pocket. I agree that if you need to send a short message to someone, it is easier to send a quick text than to call them or send an e-mail. If there is going to be any back-and-forth, use the phone part of your smartphone and give them a call. Your communication will go much quicker.

Today I have been trying to schedule a meeting between two people and there has been a lot of back-and-forth. While a phone call would be nice, that is not a good solution with more than two people. One person is generally busy doing other things, like me for example, and it is tough to get everyone on the phone together. In this case, I had a young woman ask to meet with a senior manager. While I would have liked to just introduce the two and have them work out a time to meet, protocol in this situation dictates that I act as a gating person. Otherwise the senior manger would be inundated with meeting requests and never be able to get any work done. I asked the senior manager for some preferred times and got a number of options that I passed onto the young woman. Unfortunately none of the times worked for her because of other commitments and so there has been some back and forth to find a time that will work.

The nature of text messaging allows a conversation like this to take place over several hours without ripping anyone away from meetings or interrupting the current flow of the day. Now one could argue that this process could have been shortened by having access to the young woman's and the senior manager's calendar, making it easy to find a time for the two to meet. Unfortunately there are a number of scenarios where that doesn't work. One that I run into frequently is working across time zones that are far enough apart that one of the two parties will have to meet outside of regular work hours which is what happened today.

I still dislike that some people would rather send a text than talking on the phone but recognized there are reasons where text messaging is the best form of communication.

Be Careful What You Text

On Sunday I felt inspired to visit my parents. My son had returned a TV he no longer required and I needed to bring it to my dad who had a use for it. I called me parents to make sure someone would be home and discovered that earlier in the day, my dad had slipped on the ice and fell down. He had so much pain he couldn't get up to walk. My wife and I headed right over.

We had a good chat with both my parents and I came up with a nickname for my dad that referred to a female ice skater from the 1976 winter Olympics. Three of us had a good laugh at my dad's expense. We all wondered if any ribs were broken but my dad assured us that they were not.

Monday morning I got up and went skiing with my wife but had to leave after an hour so we could go help my son move to a larger apartment. Shortly after we started carrying furniture I received a text from my mom about how she had taken my dad to the hospital because of the intense pain he felt. Sure enough, he had 7 broken ribs with 1 broken in 2 places. Fortunately my son's old apartment is right next to the hospital where my dad was admitted. We finished loading the moving van and quickly unloaded it at the new apartment. Then we headed to the hospital to visit my dad.

Both of my sons headed to the hospital in one car while the rest of us followed after unloading more stuff. I forwarded the hospital room number and information so they could find their grandpa without having to bother any of the medical staff. Naturally I sent the information to the family text group we have set up but did not provide any other information about who was in the hospital because most of the family helped with the move. Unfortunately my oldest daughter had to work and didn't have any context.

About 2 seconds after I sent my text, my daughter shot back a message asking who is in the hospital. Naturally I filled in a few details as we still had some stuff to unload and wanted to get to the hospital ourselves. She immediately followed up with a phone call asking for more information and I provided them while finishing up the job at hand.

This short experience illustrates a very important communication problem. Sometimes we don't provide enough background information in our conversations. This is especially true with text messages where we are trying to provide as short a message as possible.

Narrating Text Messages

I had to visit the post office this afternoon and had a guy behind me narrating his text messages. That means he used his phone's speech-to-text capability to send a regular text message. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a text message? Why not just call the guy on the phone. Then you don't annoy the rest of us in line while you have your conversation.

The guy in the post office really annoyed me today. Yes, it is much faster to speak into your phone and have it convert your message to text than it is to type it in yourself. Perhaps I am strange and only use text messaging when I know that someone is busy and can't talk on the phone or I can't talk on the phone. This guy held a conversation like he was talking on the phone, yet he kept having to correct the text message because speech to text isn't perfect. If you insist on texting instead of using the phone, make sure that is the most efficient use of communication. Otherwise you are just annoying those around you.

Grandpa Time

This morning at 12:11am PDT I became a grandpa. My oldest son's wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. I tried to stay up late as I knew labor had started and it was only a matter of hours before the baby came. Of course my son made sure to take a few pictures and send them to the family. At 4am the birds that like to hang out on my boat started making noise and woke me up. I checked my phone and saw the pictures sent by text message. My first thought is how much my new grandson looks like my oldest son at that age.

Fortunately I have Do Not Disturb set up on my phone. Otherwise I would have been bombarded by a constant stream of text messages as family members awoke to the good news. My phone patiently waited until 7:30 and then alerted me to all of the congratulatory messages.

This evening I had a meeting with coworkers in Japan and knew I wouldn't be able to drive down to San Jose to see my new grandson and so I went at lunch. Yes I took a long lunch but more than made up for it by staying late at the office. My son took a picture of me holding the baby and once again sent it out to the family by text message. Naturally that elicited a number of new text messages being sent by everyone.

Technology is great as it allows us to share life's miracles much easier. I look at all of the messages being sent and the participation allowed even though great distances exist between everyone. I think it is great.

The Bus Ride

I am at the Oakland airport waiting for my flight back to Salt Lake and had an interesting experience on the bus ride to get here. My son and I parked our borrowed car in the off-airport long-term lot. They had a shuttle bus to the airport and it didn't take long to fill up. Traffic is really horrible in the Bay Area this week because of the BART strike and so I had time to look around and notice what everyone on the bus was doing as my son was busy with his smartphone. It turns out that anyone under the age of 30 was on their smartphone. I laughed as I watched young couples ignore each other in favor of watching their miniature screens.

My son looked up as I chuckled thinking about the texting conversation the young lovebirds facing us were having on their phones. It went something like this:

Boy: This is cool. We R on this crowded bus & nbdy can hear R conversation.

Girl: LOL.

Boy: What do U think of those 2 in front of us?

Girl: They look like father and son

Boy: They could be brothers

Girl: No, 1 looks much older. He's cute

Boy: What? Which one?

Girl: The Dad

Boy: R U kidding?

Girl: No, look how handsome he is

Boy: But he's fat!

Girl: No he's not. Look how sure he is of himself

Boy: And bald!!!

Girl: It makes him look distinguished.

Boy: R U crazy?

Girl:  Y, R U jealous?

Boy: R we looking at the same guy?

I Hate Texting

I was the proverbial fly on the wall during a discussion this evening and it has caused me to consider my thoughts about texting. Before tonight I was firm in my hatred for the method of communication. You can chalk it up to all the bozos I see driving around, texting, and not paying attention to anyone else on the road. You can also chalk it up to an experience I had where my company was paying a consultant large sums of money only to have him spend all of his time texing and not doing any work for us.

Unfortunately I am old, compared to my kids, and I was informed that is how the current generation communicates. The question came up about what upper limit to the number of text messages should be set for a teenager. A father asked if 5,000 was the right number and a teen responded that it seemed high. So I asked the teen how many text messages he sent. "About a thousand," was his response. I was amazed. I only send and receive about 50 in any given month. But then look at the first sentence of this paragraph. Once again, I am old.

I guess I don't understand this new generation's infatuation with texting. I would much rather call someone and get an immediate answer to my question. Sure, I'll send a text if I am in the middle of something and need to get back to a person. However, if it takes more than two messages, it is time to pick up the phone. After all, isn't that why we all carry phones in the first place?

Writing Skills in Decline

Yesterday my wife and I visited with a friend who is a school teacher. During the course of the conversation the teacher mentioned that cursive or handwriting is in decline because kids are using keyboards on computers instead of handwriting for school reports. My wife then volunteered that spelling is also going downhill because of all the texting short-cuts being used. That got me thinking as to how technology is changing the way we communicate and trying to decide if it is good or bad.

I can't say that I am sad to see cursive being de-emphasized. I prefer printing to handwriting and was glad to finally get to a level in school that allowed me to start typing papers. I have had access to a computer with word processing software since before high school. So I took a typing class as soon as one was offered in middle school. It didn't take long before I could type faster than I could write. Most of my high school homework was typed. The only problem with handwriting being a dying skill is that it is tough to take notes. Whether you are in a school class or participating in a meeting at work, note taking is an important skill and cursive is much quicker than printing.

Texting is a different story. Personally I can't wait for the texting fad to die. I can agree that it does have a use as a communications tool but should be used in moderation. Unfortunately it is replacing supperior methods of communcation and that is bad for society.

I am so against texting that I have had it removed from all our cell phones except mine where I have 200 free text messages per month. If I could split those 200 messages with my wife and kids' phones I would. However I get them because of the type of phone I have and so I don't have that option. I just checked my bill and I have a total of 3 incoming and outgoing messages last month. That is all anybody should have for a given month.

My oldest daughter, who is in college, was glad to get off the family plan so she could start sending and receiving text messages. The catch is that she has to pay for her own phone. She had over 1000 text messages her first month. I asked her why she had so many. She said that it was all related to coordinating time with friends. In other words she spent 1000 text messages trying to get a groups of people together. I suggested that she might want to use the "phone" part of her cell phone and just give people a call. That would cut down on the number of text messages by a factor of 10. Furthermore she could use the conference call feature to get everyone on the line at the same time. That would make the coordination of different schedules infinitely easier.

I'm not sure my daughter is completely on-board with my idea that texting has gotten out of hand. However she did mention a conversation she had with several friends at school that echoed my pick-up-the-phone-and-call sentiments. I'm hoping they are not idle words meant to please Dad.

People talk about how great texting is because it allows them to do multiple things at the same time. Unfortunately this is a hollow excuse that is not really accurate. Trying to use that little phone keyboard to crank out a short message requires all of the person's attention. If he or she is in a meeting where important information is being given, that information needs to be repeated, wasting everyone else's time. If the person is driving a car, anyone withing a quarter mile is in danger of being in a serious accident. I once had to fire a high-priced consultant because he spent 50 minutes of our hour together reading or sending text messages. If my company is paying somone for an hour's worth of work, there better be an hour's work completed.

So when is a text message a valid form of communication? When all other forms are ineffective. I once had a close friend congratulate me via text message after my college football team handily beat his. He was at the game and the stadium was so noisy he wouldn't have been able to hear me if we were talking on the phone. Sure he could have waited until he got home to give me a call but if technology can help us communicate that much quicker, shouldn't we use it? Let's just not overuse it.