Flip phone!
Call me old school, but I don't understand text. My wife would disagree... but I feel the history of communication went like this-
In the beginning, people grunted.
Then- people talked. It worked better.
Then - there were letters. They could communicate a tangible (binding? perhaps) message across distance and time. Since this was such a gift- people respected it, and used proper English and emphasized penmanship and writing skills.
After that- the telephone came along. People understood how much better speaking directly was. You could speak in real time, and communicate nuances through phrasing and intonation that was superior to a hand written letter. Although the art of penmanship was lost, speaking directly was better. If I was pi$$ed- you'd know (and vice-versa)
THEN- the answering machine. You could speak your mind directly into an answering machine, and someone could listen to it at a later time.
AND THEN- Email- typing and sending messages instantaneously with no postage.
This is where I get a little opinionated.
FINALLY- Text.
People, bored with perfectly acceptable phones, and email, decided punching cryptic little codes into their flip phones was better. It wasn't. It was a giant leap side/backwardways in the sake of novelty. It accomplished nothing (my wife disagrees). Frustrated with what should have taken 2 seconds to say, millenials began writing BTDT, etc... in the sake of laziness/frustration. To advance this backwards field of communication, smart phones and gadgets were introduced, at about the same time as pointless annoying ringtones were introduced.
Now- people are spending longer than just leaving a darn voice mail. Not only that, text loses the nuances of voice inflection which carry meaning. With email or text, you need GREEN FONTS, EMOTICONS, EMOJI's - just to say the same thing you could have done quicker and more effectively by either choosing to leave a 15 second voicemail- OR writing a more formal and tangible email.
MY wife disagrees- she says text are somehow better to communicate "when you don't actually want to speak to the person"- I call BS. If things are that bad, in my mind- you either need to speak to them to clear the air- OR- communicate via email/ written formal letter for legal reasons.
Text, as I see it, is a pointless backwards method of novelty communication, which solves nothing, and is a step backwards in the great scheme of the universe. Don't get me wrong- I am impressed with auto voice recognition which instantaneously dictates voice into text, however, that should still go into the bin of "email". It is also a still not so perfect system- but will get better with time hopefully.
Flame on!
(emoticon needed because you couldn't hear me phrasing this in a lighthearted tone to begin with)
ps- I am laughing because someone contacted me via text on my flip phone asking if this was still my number. Since I disdain text, I called back and got his voicemail, in which he flat out stated he hated voicemail and to text him.(lol... which you would have heard if we were speaking directly, or I had told you this on a voicemail/answering machine)
As for response times-I fall under business hours for response time. So long as someone states their response times, I respect that. We expect immediate, I also respect boundaries. We all need to be able to compartmentalize as needed.