5d ago

Texting sucks. Phonecalling is the better way to communicate indirectly.

~~Unpopular preference, maybe? I've worked the title a few times but can't get it phrased as a concise opinion. Regardless, I think it still fits the spirit of the group.~~

SMS Texting in 2025 sucks. The overwhelming majority of "unknowns" texting me are marketing BS (that I didn't sign up for), scams, and other junk. It's almost at the same state that calling was ~10 years ago. Even besides that, texting a friend/family member to have a conversation feels so... wasteful? It's something I used to do and now never would. Anecdote: I also barely respond to texts at this point unless it's a direct question, "I'm at the store, do we need milk?" "Yes." Even still, half the time I'd just call them to say "yes." According to my cellular provider, I've sent 16 SMS messages since March 25th.

If I'm trying to contact someone, I always just call them unless I know they won't pick up and have told others to do the same with me.

Counterpoint to this is that some people think it's rude to cold-call, which is fair, but I have a good enough relationship with the people I keep regular contact with so that they know they can just call back at their own decision. Other than that, I'm only calling businesses/customer support, so it's a moot point.

12 comments

Calling is synchronous, texting is asynchronous.
I prefer asynchronous for most things, I can reply now, or I can reply in an hour if I'm busy.
Also, unless I have a headset on, I don't like using a phone. It's not comfortable to hold it to your head, and speaker phone just automatically makes you an asshole.
- Holding the phone is uncomfortable? Wait until this guy learns about Taco Talkin'! N-Gage forever!!!
- Some people that I know use audio texting and listen to responses at 2x speed.
- While texting is asynchronous, it's also not guaranteed delivery. I live in an unreliable part of town and work in a Faraday cage (not literally, just surrounded by concrete & rebar). This has made for some epic arguments as to why I didn't pick up eggs on my way home or whatever. At least a voice mail will eventually come through (since it's stored on some server).

Okay, but text first.

It's not even a contest how easy it is to determine an incoming text message is marketing bullshit and ignore/blocklist it versus the time sunk into getting to the bottom of a phone call.
I essentially have no reason to own a telephone anymore, for any reason whatsoever, including at my work except for the fact that dimwits incessantly keep calling me on the damn thing. And for added bonus points, they insist on getting salty any time we can't instantly answer their phone call. Which for the record is because I already have all four other lines lit up and staff on all of them, wasting 15+ minutes each on some inane query or complaint that could have been a 10 second email.
Everything could easily be conducted over SMS or email, and in fact I prefer it to be because this leaves a paper trail. I'd much rather send one of my vendors a nasty email than have to call and yell at them, because when I need to refer back to that previous communication I have an exact date and time and I have what was said right there in black and white. If I give a client everything in writing they can't conveniently "misremember" what they were promised to try to scam more out of us. What I wrote is what I wrote. It's all right there. If somebody tries to ask me to do something stupid and demands I do it anyway even after I told them it was stupid, I automatically have documentation of that order and my objection for when it all inevitably goes pear shaped.
Etc., etc.
Bury the telephone. Its time has passed.

I don't really have an opinion either way, but wtf did you do that you have crazy amounts of spam texts coming in? I get like a handful a year tops.

It depends how urgent something is and who you're contacting.
If I'm at the shops and want to know if we have something in the fridge, I'll call whoever I know is home.
But I'll text if I'm asking something that isn't urgent or if I think the other person might be busy or at work.

Unless you happen to be in a situation where you can't or don't want to answer the phone. Then it's objectively inferior to asynchronous comms regardless of what "relationship" we have.

I use other forms of text communication which are better than SMS and include various voice options.

I think they both have their place, for the many reasons people have mentioned. But my neurodivertent self HATES whole conversations over text. I do not know what tone to read anything in. If there's no punctuation it's a thousand times worse. Texting is for quick stuff that's not time sensitive. Phone calls are for anything longer than three sentences or anything time or emotionally sensitive. Drives me nuts because the majority of my friends prefer texting for everything.

Entirely depends who it is. Some people are easier on a call and some not so.

12 comments