Dear Abby: sms attachment: judgmental.jpeg

[lemonsharks]

DEAR ABBY: Recently, family members have started texting to inform me about personal, private matters. When they do, I text back, which sometimes leads to lengthy paragraphs. I wish they’d just call me! I’m beginning to wonder if that’s what they are avoiding. I should add that I am not feuding with my family. Am I wrong? — PERPLEXED IN CONNECTICUT

DEAR PERPLEXED: No, you are not wrong. People have become so enamored of their electronic devices they seem to have forgotten that sometimes it’s more efficient to just TALK to the other party. I know from personal experience that emailing and texting can take far more time than a spoken conversation.

Comments

[lemonsharks]

Show of hands: who here actually enjoys talking on the phone?

Me: 😐

[lilysea]

I enjoy talking to SOME people on the phone [my partner, close friends]

Also if my hands/wrists are painful phone calls can be a lot less physically painful than texting.

[azurelunatic]

With a few people. norabombay. My #1 partner who I live with gets video chat when we are separated, if that's an option. So does the kiddo.

My morail partner, who I do not live with, is nearly 100% text-based. Always have been, nearly always will be.

Housemate and partner and I have a mostly-text (although at least 25% cat pictures) house chat, which we use when we're in the same room on account of all of us sometimes can't brain speaking and wordsing at the same time.

[jamoche]

My mom cannot for the life of her remember how to compute the time zone offset between California and Texas, where she lives. Even worse when she takes a trip to Florida. I even made a timezone clock for her with mini clocks for all three of us kids - all of us in different timezones. She forgets to check it.

Doesn't matter how fast the convo can be if one person expects it to happen at 4AM.

[falkner]

I wish my mother texted instead of calling for every little thing.

>> When they do, I text back, which sometimes leads to lengthy paragraphs.
I bet these lengthy paragraphs are three sentences max.

[azurelunatic]

I have composed half a sentence and deleted it four times just now, trying to figure out a good way to phrase what I'm thinking. You can't un-say half-sentences in a real-time voice call. If it's something extremely personal, sometimes a person wants to choose their words very carefully, even with a sympathetic relative.

[needles]

If they send you a text that you have a lot of thoughts about and you want to call them then as opposed to writing lengthy paragraphs... Call them? The phone line works both ways.

[rymenhild]

Or even text to say, "I'd love to talk about this with you. Is it a good time?"

[shirou]

This. I much prefer texting for little things, but I understand that a phone call—or in-person conversation, if feasible—can be better for a long, in-depth discussion. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to schedule that discussion for a suitable time instead of being expected to pick up the phone at a time convenient for the person calling. I remember doing that in the days of yore and wonder why it didn’t frustrate me as much then as it does now.

[cereta]

I'll be the outlier, here: I hate texting. I'm not particularly good or fast at it, and it hurts my English teacher soul not to spell things out/use apostrophes/capitalize stuff. I don't really enjoy talking on the phone all that much, but since I left home at 18, had my friends all scatter at 22, then again at 23, and again at 24, and moved again at 31, and since none of these moves took me back to my home town, I got pretty used to using the phone to keep up relationships. I don't like calling strangers or using the phone to conduct business or deal with things like healthcare, but I'd rather talk on the phone than text. What I'd really prefer is using email/asynchronous online discussion/real-time chat than any of these, and I tell my students that if their question requires any answer longer than "yes," "no," or "Tuesday," they should email me.

So I have some sympathy for the LW, and I don't really think it's unreasonable for them to request that in-depth, lengthy discussions be conducted by speaking rather than texting. They would need to give some, too, getting used to dealing with smaller matters via text, but I don't think letting family and close friends know that you're not very big on texting is any less reasonable than telling family and close friends that you don't like talking on the phone.

[green_grrl]

What I'd really prefer is using email/asynchronous online discussion/real-time chat than any of these, and I tell my students that if their question requires any answer longer than "yes," "no," or "Tuesday," they should email me.

So. Much. This!

[julian]

Oh, like, *my* preferences are email, then IM/discord/whatever, then texting, *then* phone call, but I am wayyyy not the LW.

[minoanmiss]

I admit to a tiny smidge of sympathy for the LW -- at work I have both an email and a chat system, and dealing with the chat system when a customer has a complex issue sometimes makes my fingers hurt.

Which is why I say to them, "this is pretty complicated, may I call you?" And if I can say that to a customer LW can say that to their family member, sheesh.

[ioplokon]

just say you'd prefer to talk over the phone, or ask if you can respond with a voice message. a lot of my friends and i have mixed text/VM conversations because our preferences differ. it can be a bit weird sometimes but mostly it works. if the asynchronous part is the bother then i think lw needs to be the one to step up and schedule a phone call or video call.

but uh, basically, it sounds like they are just expecting people to call them without ever expressing a preference.

[mommy]

Different people prefer different forms of communication. Some people like texting. Some people like chatting on the phone. This looks more like LW has a pet peeve than anything else.

[adrian_turtle]

I have had SUCH good results with texting, "I'd like to discuss this further. When would be a good time, and do you prefer voice or text?"

[conuly]

Is there a question here?

[topaz_eyes]

I personally prefer texting over speaking, and my kids do too. But imho it's much faster to resolve certain issues by phone, so I'll let them know.

[redbird]

I prefer email or a voice call to texting, because texting is a lot more prone to "autocorrect" introducing errors.

Abby is really missing the point, with the bit about "enamored of their electronic devices," as if my smartphone somehow stops being electronic when I'm using it for a spoken conversation.

I suppose it answers what the LW asked, but it's not exactly usable advice. They'd do better picking up the phone themself, or sending a text asking the other person to do that instead of sending long texts, without saying "I wrote to Dear Abby, and she agrees with me that voice calls are better than texting."

[bikergeek]

A couple of years ago I saw an article that was titled, roughly, "Why don't millennials like to talk on the phone?"

Turns out that there are a bunch of reasons younger phones don't like voice phone calls:

1. Spam. Telemarketing and telescams—and, let's face it, telescams are about the only form of telemarketing left—have greatly reduced the value of the telephone as a communications tool. A call from someone not in your phone's contact list is very likely to be a scam call.
2. Deteriorating voice quality. "Can you hear me now?" When AT&T was a regulated monopoly, the conditions of service called out minimum call quality. Today, on voice calls, I'm forever having to ask people to repeat themselves, and the sound quality is bad enough to induce listener fatigue. I'm finding this is true for VOIP calls as well as mobile.
3. The fact that a voice phone call interrupts whatever the other person is doing and demands their immediate attention. Texting leaves them to respond whenever they find it convenient.

Given all that I can scarcely blame younger folks for not wanting to make voice phone calls. There are, however, occasions on which a voice phone call is the most appropriate communications medium.

[gingicat]

My usual is to say "call when you have time" if it's not a quick thing. But as you know, communicating even with my closest friends is hard, in any medium.

[azurelunatic]

4. Neurodivergent younger people are used to having text-based communication as a viable option, and will insist on it when that is easier than voice phone calls.

[xenacryst]

1. Spam.

Yup. There's a reason that iOS introduced a setting titled "Silence unknown callers." I now tell people that if they're going to call me they either need to give me their number first or be prepared to leave a voicemail.

[mommy]

4. You can edit and rephrase a text before you send it. Something that is said out loud is difficult to correct after the fact, and editing what you say before you say it causes awkward pauses and sounds insincere, at least in my experience.

[julian]

Like, texting is newfangled, OK. (Um. To LW, anyway.)

So tell people you'd rather call them. This is not magic.

[julian]

(also, I hated Abby's response, but whaddya gonna do?)

[sathari]

First, I'm nth'ing everyone else's comments here: some people prefer asynchronous and/or written communication, and if LW prefers phone conversations for certain types of communication, LW can use their own words and request it.

Second--- okay, any and all of the "kids these days" stuff centered around written communication just makes me want to scream, because, hello, letters used to be a primary form, if not the primary form, of long-distance communication. And freaking telegrams were the "text messaging" of the previous century. So can we just stop with the sneer words about people who happen to like written and/or asynchronous communication, or at least not pretend that it's somehow solely an artifact of current technology in a way that's a priori a bad thing?

[colorwheel]

i hate "kids these days" AND i hate old-bashing. the different forms of communication are DIFFERENT FORMS OF COMMUNICATION. they all have pros. they all have cons. the pros and cons vary person to person, mood to mood, day to day, spoon level to spoon level, location to location, etc

the only ethical thing here is respecting other people. the answer to figuring out which format to use for communication lies, unironically, in communicating about it.

[liv]

I generally hate it when agony columnists say 'use your words', but if ever there was a case for it... LW, have you perhaps considered telling your family members that you would prefer to have lengthy and personal conversations by phone?

[mirlacca]

I object, Your Honor.

Some of us communicate much more comfortably and clearly in writing than in speaking. I have trouble retaining speech, but if something is in writing I can refer to it.

Email and texting can take more time than spoken conversation, and have their own problems as far as context--BUT if writing is more comfortable for one party, please respect that.

ETA: The discussion about millenials amuses me. I'll be 69 this month. Oh, and I spell things out and use apostrophes and even (gasp) semicolons and parentheses.

Although I will grant that there are folks who just don't want to read lengthy replies.