Skip Navigation

Please, at least text me to ask if I'm ready

69

You're viewing a single thread.

69 comments
  • Not everyone is able to text. Not everyone has access to or can afford a smart phone. Refusing to take a voice call is a clear sign of social ineptitude, imo - if you really can't be bothered to do that I shudder to think of what you must be like in face-to-face interactions. Toughen up.

    • …you okay?

    • Phone calls are so much worse than face to face conversations. The absolute worst is having to make an important phone call. That ruins my entire day.

    • Imagine thinking that a smartphone is required for SMS. I remember back when smartphones were just getting to market in the 1980s, don't you?

      Levels of idiocy to that magnitude are a clear sign of basic technology ineptitude. With that said: who typed this comment for you?

      • I never said one should refuse texting, I said one shouldn't refuse calling. And as for my technological aptitude, I think I do quite well. But go off.

        I mean, I'm not a programmer or anything like that but I can be comfortable with just about any OS you put in front of me with minimal time to familiarize - though admittedly I'm most comfortable with any of numerous flavours of Linux desktop/Android, and least enthused about using Windows. I 've got a lot of practice problem-solving though nowadays that seems to be less and less frequent.

        I'm not great at touch typing as I have a tremor, but thankfully I have friends who know they can text me but I'm likely to call them back if I need to reply in any depth. On a physical keyboard my tremor doesn't really interfere with my ability to type though; actually I enjoy typing on a physical keyboard and recently upgraded to a Thinkpad so it's been better than ever.

        I do occasionally use scrpy so I can type on my phone from my laptop, but that's only practical at home obviously.

        edit: Also, I'm kind of laughing to myself at the thought anyone could think a friggin trans woman on the fediverse could possibly be inept with technology :P

        • Lol, I made the comment to highlight your attitude and send it right back at you, and you both 1) criticize something I didn't say or mention, and 2) totally miss the point of how your initial comment came across, completely missing the fact that I was using your tactic back at you, and try to make me feel bad for taking your approach and spinning it right back at you. That's... oof.

          I'd fall within that category as well (not great at touch typing, or physical for that matter) as I'm a stroke survivor who, among other losses, only has the useful capacity of one hand along with partial blindness. But voice messages (in many popular sms replacement programs) and speech to text are available.

          It was a sharp nudge to perhaps reevaluate your initial... tone, I suppose is the best term. Just a pinch (or ten) of your 'everyone should be exactly like me, and if they aren't they are inept at being' isn't exactly well-received (which, hey, you did understand that). Doubling down certainly is an option, but it's not what I'd say was anywhere near the correct one.

    • Voice calls don't have the same costs for everyone. I've worked in tech support, taking calls all day, and that shit wore on me. Dealing with text is just lower cost, at least for me. Pretty ableist to just declare one medium the one true medium, all others are a sign of ineptitude.

      Might be worth noting, also, that an earlier generation said the same goddamn thing about phone calls, as compared to F2F interactions.

      Somehow, the tune always changes, but the dance steps remain the same.

      • Yep, I worked five years of Internet tech support - I still do not like taking one-on-one calls with people. I'm usually fine with being in a group call generally, because the focus isn't on me to drive the whole thing forward all the time, along with a few other reasons.

        Not to mention, it's not even just on a physiological level either - it wasn't really all that long ago where I was on a pay-as-you-go phone plan where phone calls absolutely would add up if I spoke with everyone over the phone instead of text (which no one in my circle uses regular SMS so texting basically didn't cost me anything).

      • I've worked on the phone too and it wore on me too. But I guess I just don't think of calls with friends or family as being on the same level as calls with customers?

        • Maybe they aren't for you? For me phone calls are always stressful and there's some variance to how much but always significantly more than text.

69 comments