Friends using messages instead of picking up the phone

I think that talking on the phone is faster when making an arrangement. It takes so long on WhatsApp. Also you can't express or hear doubt or worry sometimes.

It depends on age and / or distance .. Personalised. I prefer telephoning ..

I believe it is what one is accustomed to.

Possibly also what you do professionally.

I hate typing while I am communicating with a friend. I am a Journalist !!!!!!!!!!!!

I have anxiety and I absolutely hate talking on the phone. I tend to stumble my words or forget what I wanted to say.
I don't even talk to my adult children on the phone. I prefer WhatsApp or face to face.
If anything business related I will look for an online chat or a email address first.

I agree with the WhatsApp fans. My granddaughters send me daily messages with photos that keep me informed touch with their lives. I reciprocate with links to articles I think they'd like or would be useful to them. Photos of my new haircut or pedi. It's a v quick & easy way to keep links going, and unlike a phone call you don't have to drop everything to respond immediately.

If I rang my mum, she'd just shout "Eastenders!' at me and slam the phone down.
I got her point, wasn't offended, and tried to time calls between the soaps.

We don't have a landline now, but when we did my mum would ring for a chat, and if I was out she'd call the mobile. She'd usually say 'I tried the house phone but you were out, so I'm on the mobile'. The fact that I was out, so not likely to want to chat didn't cross her mind.

And you can send photos on WhatsApp which is nice.

Friend or relatives who ring often do so at an inconvenient time and I think is ruder to cut a conversation short than to reply on WhatsApp at length when you have the time, it also gives the other person a chance to respond when they are free.

I do! Long conversations on WhatsApp, it's convenient.

Yes, I prefer WhatsApp. You can read and respond in your own time.

I hate having phone calls. When mum and dad were getting old and dad had dementia I used to dread the phone ringing. It was always bad news. Compounded by the day my daughter was involved in a riding accident ( she was ok but I didn’t know that for ages). And also the way that, pre catchup tv, the phone would always ring when I was watching something that I’d looked forward to watching ( eg the phone rang just as I was watching the last part of the last episode of The Killing). I love the way that I can message my kids and they can message me and know that we aren’t interrupting anything. My biggest problem with being banned from Facebook on my iPad is that I can no longer use messenger when I’m away from home. I seem to have lost touch with friends that only communicate by phone and won’t email or use messenger.

I have one friend who always uses WhatsApp as she’s pretty deaf and finds actual calls difficult. Others always phone, never message, horses for courses I suppose.

Surely the benefit of messaging is that you can respond in your own time. I will look at a message and if it’s not urgent and I’m in the middle of something I just reply to it later on. You can’t do that with a phone call.

Like others who have replied to the thread, I prefer messaging over phone calls. I do like speaking to people on the phone, and can ramble on for ages, but people have busy lives and a call is often disruptive.

The beauty of messages (text, email, WhatsApp etc) is they can be sent, read and responded to when it's convenient.

If I want to speak on the phone, I text first asking if it's okay, as more often than not, it's not convenient.

Technology has hijacked some people's thought processes, I think.
I had a friend get angry at me for not answering messages.
The fact that I was at work completely baffled her, as she was at work, too.
Also the agency I worked for would get angry that they'd messaged, and I'd not replied.
Because I was At Work!

but you can always leave a message/get a recorded message anyway just on a normal mobile dial.

If I want a chat with someone, I WhatsApp them to ask when convenient.

Unless it's an urgent matter, when I would both use and expect both a call and a message. - you still have the choice to pick up but are informed as to why the urgency.

It’s modern life isn’t it? I love a phone call with a friend but what we usually do as most of us have jobs still, is to text to agree a time for a call.
Sadly so many people don’t seem to want to actually talk to each other now.

Could you say this to them?
"Sorry, fingers not working well today, please call"?Could you say this to them?
"Sorry, fingers not working well today, please call"?

Noooo! In case they phone!!

Seriously, I've one friend who sends literally walls of messages, before I've had time to acknowledge her first one.

Even my boy gets cross at me spending all evening on my phone, trying to get a couple of replies in.

We (family) use WA most of the time, but phone when we want a proper conversation.

I use WA with most friends, but have a couple who I speak to on a regular basis 'by arrangement' because they moved away before mobile phones and we would have lost touch otherwise.

With people like my sister, we WA first to see if it's a good time for a chat, and neither takes offence if the other is busy.

I often don’t get to the landline before it goes on to answerphone, but at least that way if it is important I will get back to them.
My mobile is usually on silent because it needs to be off for various activities, choirs etc, and I forget to turn it back on, so a message will always reach me.

MissAdventure

The problem with messaging is that some people expect a five hour converation.
And i can t

alk the hind leg off a donkey.
But, as above shows, I'm not very dextrous, finger wise, can barely see what I'm doing, and have a steam powered phone.

Could you say this to them?
"Sorry, fingers not working well today, please call"?

I think messages are ok for appointments , practical matters and its great to get photos, but sometimes its nice to hear a voice.

As a family we use WhatsApp all the time and face to face calls which I find helpful as I am deaf and it is all much easier if I can see them.
The only problem I find is when people don’t reply and you are left wondering whether to send another text or what, somehow the landline out of the blue feels intrusive now.

Pleasebenice

I use messages to send a single quick message but I have friends who use channels like WhatsApp to have a long conversation. I try to divert to a call but they get annoyed or don’t answer. If I am busy or even just reading my book, a long written chat is much more disturbing than a nice phone call. Is that just me?

These are not mutually exclusive. WA messaging need not involve long conversations - I don’t actually get that.
A short WA message need not intrude and some phone calls can be often intrusive, at a bad time and be hard to terminate if the other party is determined to go on and on. Or all three.
Brought up in the days of landlines, few of us will deliberately ignore an incoming call . Which is why I so often preface my call with “is this a good time?”
My Ds laugh at this and say if it wasn’t, they’d have left it unanswered (which can be VERY deflating)
Our children’s generation will look at who it is and just not pick up.
The advantage of WA is that you can form a group - eg family members, book group, neighbours and so avoid having to text separately when you don’t need to.
A written message, in whatever form can be picked up,read and replied to when it suits you