
Texting Is On The Decline - sethbannon
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/01/18/263485395/still-texting-omg-thats-already-so-old-school?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook
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ritchiea
The title is deceptive, it would be more accurate to say SMS is on the
decline. There is no evidence or suggestion that the behavior of sending short
messages (typically via your phone) is on the decline, it just seems to be
moving to proprietary protocols such as iMessage. Usually when I "text" I am
actually sending an iMessage because most of my friends use iOS devices. It
may be interesting to someone concerned about the SMS protocol that it is on
the decline, but as someone interested in how people use devices this does not
effect me.

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swayvil
You know what else is on the decline? Listening to your voice messages. What
people do is note that you called and then call you back later, having never
listened to the message that you left. Kinda makes sense. The primary message
in 99% of the cases is definitely "hey I called, call me back". We should go
back to beepers.

~~~
mrjatx
I disable voicemail immediately. I absolutely hate the feature. Visual
voicemail/voicemail to txt is.. okay. It's a fair trade. But if I'm somewhere
where I can't answer the phone I want you to just send me a text message.
Maybe (not always) I can answer you via text, or at least I can QUICKLY be
aware of how important it is as opposed to calling my carrier, waiting for
queues, hitting 4 buttons, having to skip through 3 old messages... Just to
hear white noise because you didn't hang up immediately after the voicemail
started.

~~~
yeukhon
The problem is not everyone can text you. For example, I get missed calls from
school, from my dentist office or from government agency. They don't text me
back when I am offline. I hate calling strangers back.

I don't like listening to my voicemail either but it is still essential in
today's communication. Just as not everyone has text enabled. But when the
person is not available, I at least know he or she has voicemail enabled or
not. Plus, I hate typing on my phone. It takes so much effort. My big hands
never play nice with screen keyboard, whereas over voice I can just spill the
words in 10 seconds.

> Just to hear white noise because you didn't hang up immediately after the
> voicemail started.

I don't know how often this happen but I think in general people nowadays
either hang up immediately or the chance of plain white noise is pretty low.

Some of my friends are SMS users, some are twitter, some are FB, some are
imessage. There is a big fragmentation and this is why a lot of chat app try
to integrate with your native SMS (for example, FB Messenger). Or you get
notification and reply over SMS (FB, Twitter)

~~~
johnchristopher
I agree with you.

Moreover, I understood over the years that it's always better to communicate
with people using their favourite means of communication: FB? MSN chat? mail?
SMS? phone call? Whatever it is I just use it because it reduces friction.

Personally I favor email. I don't like being called on the phone but I find it
convenient that I can call someone (like most people I suppose).

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elwell
"Texting" isn't on the decline; simply an increasing number of text-based
mobile messages are sent over different, more efficient network technology.

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bane
Finally, I don't text with anybody. The few people I know who text look at me
like I'm crazy and ask, "well how do you keep in touch?" And I answer, e-mail,
IM, phone calls, voice mail, facebook, kakao talk etc.

IM is so good these days it completely eliminates 100% of my texting needs.
Texting feels so old fashioned, something out of the feature phone era.

 _edit_

I also feel terribly cheated paying for texting knowing that it costs the
phone companies effectively $0. On the rare occasion I do text, I groan
audibly. I've actually gotten a google voice account purely for dealing with
texters.

~~~
mrjatx
I disagree completely. There are so many IM/Messaging clients that have
absolutely no connection to one another nowadays that it's absolutely terrible
to try to find somebody on one. Sure, maybe all of your Programmer coworkers
are on Gchat, but what about that guy/girl you met last week and are going on
a date with? Are you going to ask them to download and install Kik? Sign up
for a Google/AIM/Jabber account? What about that old friend you saw for the
first time in a few years at a conference; you gonna do the same?

Texting is ubiquitous. I know that if you gave me your phone number that you
can receive a text message. Whether it's ATT, Verrizon, Tmobile, Cricket, or
some international carrier I know that I can communicate with you via a
messaging tool (texting) without having to delve into whether or not you have
a Kik/Viber/WhatsApp/Whatever account.

Obviously all of this is alleviated if we just pick up the phone and call one
another, but I'm specifically talking about quick messaging options.

~~~
bane
Or just send them an email. It's effectively just as quick.

~~~
mrjatx
I don't know your age, but I know very few people my age who use email for
anything beyond professional correspondence. I don't want friends/girlfriends
to email me if they need to communicate quickly. I can just see it now, "Hey
Dave, wanna head to the W?" ... 8 hours later "Sorry, just got this, why
didn't you text me?"

~~~
soperj
I get all my emails on my phone. I can answer them just as easy as a text. I
really don't see the difference and haven't for years now.

~~~
mrjatx
You're also on hackernews. You're probably a programmer of some sort. Quit
assuming that everybody else is a technology forward as you. Most of society
does not get their emails on their phone. Most of cell-phone carrying society
can always receive a text.

~~~
Jare
FWIW I'm the only person in my family that reads hacker news, and I'm also the
only person in my family that does NOT receive personal email on my phone.

~~~
mrjatx
Yeah, people are different. Assuming everyone gets email on their phone vs
text messaging which is pretty much ubiquitous is completely my point.

I can cement my point even further. You don't get emails, your family does,
but you all get text messages.

Bam, that was easy.

~~~
bane
Actually, I went through and thought about it a bit. Most of the people I know
that are my age or younger have actually turned off texting because it's
almost entirely used for spam. It's pretty much a byproduct of a time that's
quickly going by.

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zer0defex
In a way, it's kind of sad watching technologies that really could have had a
much longer shelf life go by the wayside simply because of corporate greed and
stagnation. Reminds me of television and the absolutely horrid experience that
has become over the past few years. And they wonder why people are ditching
these services in droves for products that actually listen to their users and
continue to improve themselves to offer a better experience. Good riddance.

~~~
Aardwolf
By "technology", you mean the thing that let you send 120 characters for
multiple cents of money while the internet allows you to send gigabytes of
data and doesn't care about which country you're sending to/from?

SMS _is_ the greed imho!

~~~
nicklovescode
I think zer0defex agrees with you

~~~
Aardwolf
Oh, right, he ended with "Good riddance". Somehow missed that part :)

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viraptor
> With instant messaging services, including [...] and WhatsApp, the app is
> free.

I'm always amazed how well they did it. Noone ever mentions they start
charging you after a year. Yet most people realize this only after they
already have a lot of friends they talk to via WhatsApp and can't easily
migrate to something else.

~~~
greenyoda
The cost is disclosed right on their download page:

" _First year FREE! ($0.99 USD /year after)_"[1]

The advantage of texting is that everyone is already capable of receiving your
message and you don't need to subscribe to the same messaging services as the
people you want to send messages to. This guaranteed interoperability is why
texting (and e-mail and telephone calls) are not likely to become extinct any
time soon.

Also, not all cellular plans charge extra for text messages. I've seen a lot
of plans that come with unlimited texting bundled in.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatsapp-
messenger/id3106339...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatsapp-
messenger/id310633997?mt=8)

~~~
viraptor
I've seen the price, but I've also seen 3 friends going through the
installation procedure without spotting that. Most of my friends found out
only when the trial ran out. And lots of articles present WA as a free
service. (like the one here) The company definitely lets people know they'll
be charged, but many ignore it (scroll, scroll, install, agree, agree, hey it
works!)

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devinegan
I don't see any discussion about privacy or security. Text messaging is plain
text, sent through a carrier who can produce those messages at will. Even
iMessage seems to provide you more protection, although Apple could have a key
to unlock all of those as well.

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vmarsy
The "You pay for texts" argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Most of the
phone plans come with free texting before free data.

I think the main reason why texting is in decline is mainly the "You can do
more with instant message", especially the groups messages which the article
doesn't mention.

It's so much easier to meet with your friends when you have a group
conversation than texting friend by friend the same information. Group MMS
exists, but they're not as responsive, a lot of people have them not working
correctly, plus you can't really know who read the message.

~~~
viraptor
A lot of the plans come at a higher price to include "free" texts. That's
bundling of less popular product in a way that is still profitable. Kind of
what journal distributors do.

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namenotrequired
In my environment, no one expects each other to text anymore - everything goes
through Whatsapp instead.

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yeukhon
The traditional usage of SMS communication is certainly declining. No doubt.
But that doesn't mean I can take this article serious. The article lists the
following as reasons to why SMS is declining:

 _You pay for texts: With a texting plan from your cell phone provider, you
usually pay to send text messages._

Well, I speak for the popular providers out there. Most of them have unlimited
texting at very reasonable price so it isn't like early 2000 where AT&T might
charge you something per 100 text messages. For god sake, who does that?

[http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/prepaidplans.html](http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/prepaidplans.html)

AT&T's GoPhone (prepaid, no annual contract) can have unlimited texting at as
low as $25 (that includes texting text, picture and video).

 _For example, you can set a time limit for how long messages on Snapchat can
be seen; you can send audio or video clips with WhatsApp._

This is totally application dependent. SMS was not created for that purpose
and this is unfair to say SMS sucks because message doesn't expire. So of
course it doesn't fit some people's requirements.

 _You don 't have to worry about phone numbers_

But you have to worry about an account. FB, Google Hangout, Snapchat all have
accounts. Your number is your identity in SMS's world, and your email / app
account is your identity to your contacts. If we want multiple numbers, then
how is it different from facebook requires a different account? The SMS works
just fine. It's that we tight the phone with a single number and because SMS
is distributed in a phone, there is a single identity.

 _Where young people go, their elders will follow_

I consider myself an elder for being 22. Okay. Joking aside, I mean I don't
use WhatsApp or Snapchat. I didn't really start using Twitter until Q3 2013.

And to be honest, when the author says _people over 55 will be buying smart
phones at the quickest rate this year_ , this doesn't prove elders are
following young people. The old flip phones are going away in the market. It's
2014 and there aren't that many left. Smartphones are everywhere (at least in
the US). Do you see people carrying mobile phone from the 1990s? Of course
not. Was that because the people in their 20s back then was carrying those
small flip phones? No. Of course not. It was because people found value in the
smaller and smarter mobile phones so they ditched the big mobile phone. When
AT&T renew my 2-year contract I get discount on new mobile phones. Of course I
will take advantage of that. I am not arguing that young people don't
influence the market and how we buy things, but to say the decline of SMS has
to do with elders following young people's footstep is not right.

Many applications are integrated with SMS. For example, you can reply and get
notify via SMS on your phone. You don't need to have FB Messenger or Twitter
app installed on your phone. I can disconnect my data connection and get
notify on my phone. That's a great benefit. I don't need to connect to the
internet all the time. I just connect when I need to.

