My cellphone is without doubt the most annoying and intrusive item in my life. It may sound anti-social, rude and unacceptable behavior, but the way I see it, I have the right to refrain from answering my phone whenever I want. For me, it happens a lot that I don’t answer the phone, out of business, guilt, or just not feeling like it. Many people would say that common courtesy mandates that most calls should be answered most of the time, but I’m not one of them.
Of course, this makes me undependable and even borderline untrustworthy, but that’s me. Why should I pretend that I’m someone I’m not?
What’s wrong with email? What can you say on a phone that you can’t say in an email? I know that Blackberries and email-from-cellphone is nowhere near ubiquitous in Iran, but why don’t you text me (SMS me) whatever you want to say? Since when am I so important to warrant 5 or 25 missed calls a day?
I do apologize for my behavior, not because it’s wrong but because it’s unexpected and a little rude.
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iman | 11-Aug-08 at 3:45 pm | Permalink
hi.
_ . it makes me a little unhappy but don’t really know is it my problem or not. don’t like to change my way; but sth i feel panicky weather i’m wrong or right. anyway …
i have the same problem (or better to say the same etiquette) like you.
_my phone wonders about my missed calls
” What’s wrong with email? ”
nothing wrong with that . even it’s much more faster, cheaper, easier and better and and and … but for network players.
changing communication habit from telephone to email takes long time in iran (longer with bandwidth problems).
MatGill | 11-Aug-08 at 8:21 pm | Permalink
English SMS costs (as far as I know) more than a short phone call. Isn’t that a good enough reason?
yzt | 11-Aug-08 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
@MatGill:
Currently, based on the prices of the government-owned phone service provider, SMSs written in Farsi cost around 85 (give or take) Rials each and English SMSs are 235 Rials each. Cellphone calls are 500 (or something, I’m really not sure) per minute, and if I understand correctly, they round the call time up.
While I agree that a short phone call would cost less bandwidth-wise (if you divide the cost by the amount of information you can transfer per unit of time,) but I think most people waste their bandwidth when they are talking to each other. If they are forced to write, however, they will be more concise, to the point, and informative. They will think about what they want to write and what they want to convey, at least some of the time that happens.
So, I prefer receiving text messages rather than phone calls, and I think you generally agree with me too, don’t you?
But, all of us have received our share of useless “Are you awake” or “Call me” or “How are you?” or “Happy New Year” messages.
MatGill | 11-Aug-08 at 10:55 pm | Permalink
Well, I don’t agree with you, as long as the call is kept short. I do keep my calls short. Anyways, there are cell companies even in Iran that calculate the cost by seconds (I’m not sure about the Government service, but I’ve heard from people with those lines that it is better to call than to send SMS). So if you want to ask a friend if he/she want to go out with you for a lunch, then there are _at_least_ 2 messages involved (47 T, now you don’t think you should exclude your friend’s expenses, do you?). A short conversation (for me) takes about 5-10 seconds (4.2-8.4 T).
“Wanna have lunch?”
“Yeah, sure”
“Milton Gate in 5″
“Ok, see ya”
(I’ve had similar conversations numerous times)
Even if you calculate the time by minutes, it’s still better to make a call (47 T and 50 T are not much different, unless you only want to send a one way message). And take into account that you can talk faster than you send SMS.
By the way, the phone company I’m using now has unlimited free calling time for evenings and weekends, but the SMS is not free.
Hadi | 12-Aug-08 at 6:29 pm | Permalink
Transferring messages via these 3 mediums (Phone call, SMS, Email) differs in some ways, so someone may prefer one over another sometime:
+ When s/o wants to transfer the message as soon as possible, phone call is better. Because it happens sometimes that short message arrive much later than it should, or it never arrives. Although, s/o can employ some other strategy:
1. Send an SMS + Ack. like “OK?” at the end.
2. If you don’t receive the reply in like 10 minutes, send one more SMS.
3. after like 10 minutes, make a phone call.
BTW, some people consider questions asked by SMS as not so important, and they may delay replying them.
+ Voice conversations can transfer more emotions than pure text. So, if I feel that the other person should know how I feel, I’d make phone call rather than sending an SMS. E-mails are better than SMS in the way that you can use many emoticons, but Phone call is much better. Meeting face to face is the best
+ Typing long SMS’s aren’t any good.
+ Sometimes we should decide what to say next after hearing the answer to a question. Most people behave SMS like chat, and send questions in separate messages, and I hate this. Some people ask as much questions as they can. for example, consider this scenario:
A: “Where are you?”
B: “University”
A: “The come to room 101″.
Mr. A could ask “Where are you? If you are at univ. then come to room 101″.
If the message has more “if’s” than on 1 or 2, I think phone call is better.
Hadi | 12-Aug-08 at 6:41 pm | Permalink
I forgot one more case:
+ Some people send broad-cast messages using SMS, which seems to be the craziest and least economical way. They can use email (or maybe a blog post?) instead
yzt | 21-Aug-08 at 8:13 am | Permalink
@MatGill:
OK, so phone calls may be slightly cheaper in some case. But that wasn’t my point. My point was that sending SMS is less intrusive and annoying.
@Hadi:
I still think it is a right of the receiver not to respond to the SMS.
I also think that one shouldn’t reply unless an implicit or explicit question is involved. If you send me an SMS saying “I’ll be there in 10,” I don’t believe it warrants a reply. If one wants a reply, they should do what you said, add an “OK?” to the end, or the letter “p” if the third party knows Lisp!
MatGill | 26-Aug-08 at 12:12 am | Permalink
Yeah, I got your point. But my budget is tight, you know