So, day two of the Spousal Unit’s unscheduled visit to Forest Park Medical Center, and as I negotiated with our dog sitter to go walk the PsychoPuppies, and am getting ready to send out the patient update, I realized that I can’t live without texting.
Cell phones are great, but then you have to talk. Sometimes, it’s just not worth a conversation, and other times, you don’t want to give the recipient an opening to change the subject.
Email is useful – you don’t have to talk, so you won’t get off on side issues – but not everyone has a mail client available all the time.
Texting gives you the advantage of interrupting your recipient wherever he may be. It also forces you to get to the point, since you have a limited number of characters per message. (From a recipient standpoint, once your phone is on mute, you’re ignoring the world, and can reply at your leisure. Also, a text at the right time can get you out of any number of interminable situations, even if you didn’t really receive one.)
Unlike phone calls, you can send one text to multiple people – or I can with Google Voice, anyway. (There are services to create distribution lists, as well.)
During the weather shitstorm in Dallas earlier this week, newscasters were reminding people that everyone was trying to call friends and family simultaneously, and texting used a lot less bandwidth, so if a call wouldn’t go through, a text might.
About the only negative is that we’re all being charged for using excess bandwidth that’s there anyway. However, given the number of messages I’ve sent from a hospital room recently, it’s worth it.
Reblogged this on emmageraln.