texting etiquette

[luteman]

Constant cell phone usage in public;texting;call waiting.....all rude behaviors. I'm waiting for some enterprising electrical genius to develop a low cost,easily concealed "jammer". I'll buy the first one!

[Kristofor]

I guess I'm a geezer then. I don't do texting. It is a VERY inefficient means of communication, and is quite costly.

That depends on how you measure efficiency... If you're a 13 year old girl and talking with your 10 friends you can maybe manage 3-4 on a conference call, but can be communicating with all 10 concurrently via IM/Text

Calling it a "generational thing" is finding an excuse. It's just plain rude and impolite at any age.

I have grand parents who think cell phones are impolite and there's no reason to contact someone when they're away from the house.

When younger, I can remember them making the same comments about answering machines being rude ("how important do people think they are that they need an electronic secretary")

Going back further than I remeber there were probably people who were annoyed by phone calls when a nice well thought out letter was much better than a random stream-of-thought phone call.

Like death and taxes older folks always seem to find the ways of youngsters rude and "not like it was in my day". I might not adopt or like the newer ways of doing things but I'm not overly concerned by it either...

Constant cell phone usage in public;texting;call waiting.....all rude behaviors. I'm waiting for some enterprising electrical genius to develop a low cost,easily concealed "jammer". I'll buy the first one!

Such devices do exist (depends on your definition of low cost). The FCC will not like you very much if you start employing one in public areas that you don't own/control.

[docrowan]

I hate texting, I was delighted to find my company blocks all incoming and outgoing texts on my company phone. As DB said, texting is inefficient and expensive. Some thought is usually given to an email. Texting seems to be almost a stream of consciousness thing as far as I can tell, and I don't think their thoughts are that interesting.

I consider myself to be on-call 24/7. However, I turn my phone to silent or off during meetings, movies, and church. If I receive a call at a restaurant, I will excuse myself from the group and take the call in the lobby or outside where I won't bother others. My wife and I talk briefly with each other throughout the day. If I see it is her calling, I will sometimes answer the phone to simply say "Can I call you back?" She's efficient enough to say "Yep" and hang up the phone. If I'm driving and talking with her and I come into some traffic I'll interrupt me or her to say "Gotta go" and hang up. She knows nothing is wrong; I just need to focus. She doesn't even want to know what happened when I eventually call her back.

I occasionally will take a call-waiting if I am on the phone with a family member (wife or mom) whom I talk with frequently and we are just chatting and catching up. I would not do this with a co-worker, customer, or family member who I don't talk with on a weekly basis.

[BobSch]

Saw a guy at the grocery store some time ago who left a whole cart-load of groceries on the belt, un-paid for, and walked out of the store because the checkout clerk was answering a text message. The manager went after the guy and they had a "discussion" in the parking lot. The manager came back in and started putting all the groceries back in the cart to be re-stocked. Never hear what happened to the clerk.

[jking]

I guess I'm a geezer then. I don't do texting. It is a VERY inefficient means of communication, and is quite costly.

Texting is a form of mobile e-mail. For personal communications, I agree with DB, sort of. Texting can be inefficient & costly. Imagine you're headed home from work & SWMBO calls on you phone & asks you to stop at the store & pick something up. I can remember a lot of things, but, lists for the store are not one of them. I would have to stop so I can write down what she needs. Or I try to remember & forget what half of it was & have to call back while I'm in the store.

Now, if she sends a text with the list of things to pick up, I'm good to go. I have my list & I can look at it at the store. Now this still requires the list to be specific enough...

I hate texting, I was delighted to find my company blocks all incoming and outgoing texts on my company phone. As DB said, texting is inefficient and expensive. Some thought is usually given to an email. Texting seems to be almost a stream of consciousness thing as far as I can tell, and I don't think their thoughts are that interesting.

For people who have business e-mail & deal with any amount of meetings or travel during the day, texting can be a great resource. If you're stuck somewhere without wifi, you can still send & receive e-mails through the phone if you have the appropriate data pack. I have certainly my share of e-mails that needed to have more thought put into them. I've received some that required a phone call to the sender b/c it was incoherrent.

Texting is really like anything else. It is a tool; no more, no less. It will fit some people's needs & for others it will be waste of time. Texting every five minutes while you're talking to someone is no more rude than it is to take a phone call in the middle of a meeting.

[Hellrazor]

I love my technology items but texting sucks. I have a company cell and am on call 24/7. If I am at a meeting the ringer is off. If it annoys me like it did at the conference I was at today the phone will get turned off until we have a break. I have an employee I have to wean off of the texting bug before I get tired of it and it becomes a discipline issue. We don't play the personal cellphone gestapo at work but I am tired of seeing it.

[herb fellows]

Calling it a "generational thing" is finding an excuse. It's just plain rude and impolite at any age.
.

My thoughts exactly! If they want to say they know it is rude but they just don't care they are going to do it anyway, that's one thing.
To say that you don't know for a fact that it is rude would indicate to me a distinct lack of upbringing.

The young lady I'm referring to went to Tsinghua University, China's equivalent of Harvard/Yale. Her dad is a noted geologist and her mother is a anesthesiologist.
How you could get through schooling like that and not know basic manners is beyond me.

[herb fellows]

Texting is a form of mobile e-mail. For personal communications, I agree with DB, sort of. Texting can be inefficient & costly. Imagine you're headed home from work & SWMBO calls on you phone & asks you to stop at the store & pick something up. I can remember a lot of things, but, lists for the store are not one of them. I would have to stop so I can write down what she needs. Or I try to remember & forget what half of it was & have to call back while I'm in the store.

Now, if she sends a text with the list of things to pick up, I'm good to go. I have my list & I can look at it at the store. Now this still requires the list to be specific enough...



For people who have business e-mail & deal with any amount of meetings or travel during the day, texting can be a great resource. If you're stuck somewhere without wifi, you can still send & receive e-mails through the phone if you have the appropriate data pack. I have certainly my share of e-mails that needed to have more thought put into them. I've received some that required a phone call to the sender b/c it was incoherrent.

Texting is really like anything else. It is a tool; no more, no less. It will fit some people's needs & for others it will be waste of time. Texting every five minutes while you're talking to someone is no more rude than it is to take a phone call in the middle of a meeting.

Ok, to take a phone call in the middle of a meeting qualifies in my book as rude, unless of course it's an emergency.
What about taking a phone call every five minutes during a four hour meeting?

[leehljp]

For people who have business e-mail & deal with any amount of meetings or travel during the day, texting can be a great resource. If you're stuck somewhere without wifi, you can still send & receive e-mails through the phone if you have the appropriate data pack. I have certainly my share of e-mails that needed to have more thought put into them. I've received some that required a phone call to the sender b/c it was incoherrent.

Texting is really like anything else. It is a tool; no more, no less. It will fit some people's needs & for others it will be waste of time. Texting every five minutes while you're talking to someone is no more rude than it is to take a phone call in the middle of a meeting.

Texting as you mentioned it is no different than basic push email or wifi email WHEN used as needed, instead of instantly. I know a few people who hate email and only check it once a day to every other day. TMs are checked regularly because it is "current". In this sense, it is more attitudinal than generational. Yep, it is a tool but there are basic attitudes attached to individual "tools".

When TMs are treated as email and checked only when free from commitments and company, then it is fine. However, the attitude of many TMers is this: it ceases to be TM when you have to treat it as email!


One organization that I am very familiar with has nearly 5000 personnel world wide. Going back to 10 years ago, they quit sending snail mail (saving nearly a million dollars a year.) Documents, PDFs and Excel and basic communication was changed to be through email. Email savvy is a requirement. Now, this organization is getting a generation in which quite a few prefer TM and these same folks check email once a day to once every two or three days, and take even longer to reply because it does not come in through TM. . . If it isn't Instant Message or can be texted back in a few words . . ugh~

[jziegler]

As a 32 year old, I will add to the rude votes. But then, I don't do texting, and discourage everyone very strongly from texting me. I won't reply to a text, and I get charged fore receiving them. I wish there was an option to disable reciving all texts.

The other theng that is very rude is texting in a theater. I went to a movie last night (which I rarley do anymore) and a couple was sitting right in front of us, and halfway through the movie was texting (or at least doing something on their cell phone for a couple minutes). The brigt glowing screen was very distracting.

Jim

[docrowan]

One thing that bothers me about texting is nobody asks before texting you. Email doesn't cost the receiver a penny, texting usually does. As I mentioned in a previous post, my company turned off text messaging. I suspect I have a some people who include me in their TM's. So far I haven't had anyone ask me why I didn't respond to their TM, when I do I'll give them my frank opinion of it.

[BobSch]

Our company offered to block texting when we signed up for their cell phone service. You might want to give your carrier a call.

[herb fellows]

Thanks to all for your replies. I think I was looking for validation for my position more than anything else, and I really expected it to be upheld almost universally.
However, quite a few of you think it is ok, which really surprises me.
One thing I read on the internet stated a situation where a guy walked away from a girl on a date, then texted her to 'rext me back' when you have some time to dedicate to me'!

Things we wish we would have thought of at the time.......

[Wood_workur]

I know its a bit late (I haven't been at a computer for a week), but it is VERY generational. Many times people think that if they don't get a reply right away then the other person MUST hate them, and have something against them. However they also forget that also applies to the person they are talking with in person. Its not terribly uncommon to see a couple on a date only for one of them to be texting someone.

[leehljp]

Many times people think that if they don't get a reply right away then the other person MUST hate them, and have something against them.

I have two thoughts on this -

1. They must be terribly insecure if they feel that they have to instantly please everyone with an answer, especially their friends. However, I feel instant IM and TM is more from self-centeredness than insecurity.

2. Many times when someone calls or emails for approval for something out of the ordinary, our standard answer is: "If you want an instant answer - the answer is 'No'. If you give me some time to think on it, it might be possible." The lack of instant responses or answers on every situation drives a few of our folks up the wall!