posted
Well, I actually answer phone calls, most of the time when I'm home, and I reply to e-mails, but they're not checked every day. The biggest problem I have with email is that I get so much stuff that sometimes I don't see the important stuff. I check Facebook every day because I post news stories to my friends, who can read them or not, but I'd like to respond to them if they comment. That's mostly what I do on Facebook is post links to stories I find interesting or to interesting bits of humor, and sure, it can be a time waster if you let it. I don't text because I don't have any kind of cell phone--still have the land line. My main reason for that is I like the land line--if I'm home, I'm able to be contacted, but I'm sometimes incommunicado and I feel that's a good thing. Otherwise, I'd dump the land line and get a cell because the cost is a wash pretty much. Now, there are times when I wish I had a cell phone, like when the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and I'm thinking of getting some kind of emergency cell for that kind of thing.
But honestly, I try to get back to people through whatever means is at my disposal and theirs if I really need to get in touch with them, or they me.
quote: I get so much stuff that sometimes I don't see the important stuff.
That's why I have two email accounts. One I give to friends and family. The other I use to sign up for stuff, and any other public use.
I've gone completely on-line with my email. Gmail is my primary, and my older yahoo account is my spam box. I didn't give any of you my yahoo account did I? Posts: 10854 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
So, you know how the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath? That's how I feel about all this technology that God has given us. I am not a dog, to salivate and jump at the sound of a bell. I do not understand why, in situations where it is clearly not an emergency, one would ever think it appropriate to tell a person who is physically present to wait while one answers the telephone.
Likewise, I don't understand berating someone for not calling you back when you haven't left a message. As part of my mobile voicemail message, I used to actually say (in an effort to encourage callers to understand my point of view), "if you don't leave a message, I will assume it wasn't important." I changed it after a few weeks because almost everyone (including friends and family) left overly sarcastic messages, such as "well, this isn't really important, so I guess I won't leave a message. Call me." or "An important message, huh? Well, I do need to talk to you about this claim, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it's IMPORTANT..." Everyone sounded offended that I'd told them to leave a message if they wanted a call back. Even so, most of the messages were only "please call me back."
One of the reasons I dislike the telephone (and,frankly, much of in-person communication) for non-social communication is that there is the constant pressure to be social. It makes me sound like a big jerk, and I'll have to make my peace with that, but if I need to tell 5-10 scouts that we are not meeting at the church this week, but are instead meeting at Brother Jones' house, I don't want to have to discuss the weather and the school board with each of their mothers. If you are short and to the point in a text or in an email, and convey only the necessary information, people expect that and are not offended. Not so with a telephone call or visit. It can add up to a lot of time.
Not to mention the convenience (really, to both parties) of text and email. You can read it and respond when you have time/inclination (this is what is so distasteful about those whose email requires a "read receipt"-ugh) and not play "email tag" (notice there is no such term) or wake someone up at 9:30 with an email (I guess I have a later bedtime than most).
Of course, I've been talking about what I prefer. Certainly I wouldn't assume that everyone has a text number or email address, and I do generally ask people what communication medium they prefer. But
Posts: 2969 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
If I must have an answer, I end the message with please call, or I'll be contacting you again.
However, most of the time, even if I want to hear from them, I don't need to hear from them. For instance, if I call someone to find out what home teaching they've done. And they don't respond, I record them as having seen no one.
Posts: 10854 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Yeah, you saw the part where I said "you should have answered the three messages I left this month" right? I mean, how much more detail do you need than: "Hey, I'd like to set up a hometeaching appointment that is convenient for you."
See, the messages that used to get left from the hter that didn't see us much were, "Hey... Brother soandso here... Uh, I wanted to chat. Talk to you another time. Call me!"
Since I'm not really capable of "chatting" on the phone, I never called him. And he never approached us at church, or tried email (I'd given him my card with email addy and cell number and written "best ways to reach me are email and text" on it.) If he'd at least left YOUR message, he would have got a call back to schedule a time.
Posts: 8147 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
While agree that it was wrong for the leaders to not ensure the word got out to all their youth (the OP situation). That said, I'm a big fan of texting, because I like KQ and others Hate calling people on the phone. I even know why, it's a common symptom of all the various forms of ADD/ADHD (not everyone has it but it shows up quite often in all the variants).
It's almost painful to for me to call someone, I'll answer the phone and talk to people with little difficulty, though my conversations tend to be brief and too the point, but don't ask me to call someone. Text has been a lifesaver, and with a modern smart phone group texts are a piece of cake as is always having email with me in my pocket or at least plugged in next to me on my desk.
But I also make sure the people I need to text even have the capability before relying on it.
If it's an important announcement, ask for acknowledgement of receiving the message, before expecting attendance or obedience to the message. Phones get misplaced, left off the plug and die (biggest drawback to a smartphone), or are otherwise occasionally not reliable.
I have faced down a supervisor upset at me for missing a meeting I didn't hear about because he'd relied on text to announce it. The text message arrived on my phone (my old AT&T phone) after the meeting ended, and about 20 minutes before he stormed in to yell at me.
p.s. Hi, I'll probably pop up again in a month or so.
Posts: 2912 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:That said, I'm a big fan of texting, because I like KQ and others Hate calling people on the phone. I even know why, it's a common symptom of all the various forms of ADD/ADHD (not everyone has it but it shows up quite often in all the variants).
I did not know that. Explains a lot. I've been certain for a very long time that I have ADHD. My mother, brother and daughter have all been diagnosed, I haven't bothered to seek a diagnosis because I'm dumping enough money into my daughter's treatment and I've mostly learned to cope.
Posts: 1099 | Registered: Aug 2009
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posted
I hate calling people on the phone too, believe it or not. I'd much rather respond via written text, such as this forum. It gives me time (usually) to actually think through my responses instead of just blaring something out that I might regret saying later. And I think I may be ADD or some derivative--when I'm talking (listening) on the phone, my attention wanders nearly immediately and I don't actually hear what others are saying a lot of the time.
Posts: 3194 | Registered: May 2006
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posted
I tend to text when I want someone to get the message but I don't want to disturb them with what they might be doing, eg working, home teaching, having family time or whatever. I tend to phone when I have to, but I always see texts as less intrusive because they don't demand instant attention the way that a whiney phone does. They're just so needy when they ring.
It was great in the old days when I dug sites without a mobile phone and there was no way people could interrupt me other than coming out to the middle of nowhere. Now, I end up running a job interview for a candidate in Glasgow when I'm in a German WWI trench in a wood in France. It just ain't right.
Posts: 1460 | Registered: Oct 2008
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posted
I hate that the world has become such that if we don't like doing something, we excuse ourselves from doing it. I hate the phone too, but when it comes to doing my callings and supporting others in theirs (including HT and VT), I suck it up. There are worse things.
Posts: 4324 | Registered: Jul 2004
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My kids always tell me that they don't like or don't want to do something...I always tell them that 80% of the time I spend is spent doing things I don't like or don't want to do.
It's not a disqualifier.
As a side note: We dug out of our driveway this morning (16 inches pf snow yesterday) to take our son to his church basketball game...drove him there only to find out that the games had been cancelled with no phone, text, email or otherwise message to tell us.
And before you jump on me, this is Colorado. Things rarely get cancelled the day AFTER a huge storm. And our church leaders almost NEVER cancel things. There was no presumption of it being cancelled.
Posts: 4278 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
OH man, I tell my kids the same thing (paraphrased) all the time.
This just came to mind from January's First Presidency message (which has become a big thing in our house. If you haven't read it, do.):
quote: William James, a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher, wrote, “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”1
posted
If the whole point is to communicate with someone, I was always taught that requires two parties involved. Message needs to be sent and RECIEVED. How often do have failure to communicate because someone assumes that having a message sent (via text, facebook, twitter, myspace, skywriting, email or anyother method) means that the distant station recieved the message, read it and understood what it says.
Sometimes it seems to me that the more technology develops and devises new software or hardware to make our lives easier, it also provides us more opportunity to fail at doing simple tasks...like communicating.
Posts: 686 | Registered: Jul 2005
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