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I'm disappointed to see more companies trending towards text messages. Text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication, but some companies (like my network carrier) text me to let me know things like my bill was auto-paid.

I'll be in the middle of coding and my phone goes off, so I stop everything I'm doing to see that my monthly was autopaid. With email, I check it every 2 hours to minimize distractions and I can also use filters to ignore certain routine emails, but companies text messaging me feels like an intrusion into my privacy.

4 comments

1) I'm pretty baffled by "text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication." There's absolutely no "correct" way to use text messaging, I don't use them for time sensitive communication, I treat text messages the opposite way, I'll get to my text messages when I get to them. If you want my attention now, call. I am not alone in this considering half the time I send a text in the morning I don't get a response until the afternoon. I actually anticipate this since I [naïvely?] assume people are actually working while at work. For me, I'll check my notifications at work when I get up to go to the bathroom or get coffee.

2) [Almost?] all companies let you opt out of text message notifications and/or customize it, I've never seen a company that didn't. For example, for Verizon I just go into "Manage your communications and alerts" online and set it to "email" rather than "text." Phone companies set text by default only because they already have your phone number.

3) Assuming you don't have a dumb phone, this is a solved problem, just put your phone on "do not disturb" while you are working. You can set it to where priority numbers (like your spouse) still give you notifications for emergencies. You can even set "do not disturb" to automatically coincide with your calendar events and/or time of day.

I'm likely younger than you, but I use text messages exactly opposite of you. If something is time sensitive, call me. If I can glance at it, or just outright ignore it for ~8 hours or more, text works perfectly.

If you're checking email every 2, texts should be every 4. If you're getting urgent messages over text often, someone else is making a mistake. Most people I know don't even read texts for hours later.

You can probably set your notification preferences somewhere on your carrier's website. Unless you do that, they probably have no idea if you even have an email address.

> Text message should be used only for time-sensitive communication

That's how I use it as well, but I'm not sure we're in the majority. To the phone company, a text message is the less time sensitive way to communicate. Time sensitive communications are handled with an actual phone call.

You can mute messages from certain contacts on both android and iOS. You'll get a notification, but it won't make a sound or wake your phone.

Yes, but this is very poor compared to how precise you can get with email filters. I use git to version 1000-line Sieve filter to route incoming mail, I couldn't do the same with texts (thankfully they are still much more rare than email).

So, like the parent of your comment, I find that email is a much better medium for non-time-sensitive communication than SMS.