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by huffmsa 2634 days ago
And progress for the sake of progress isn't necessarily a good thing.

I've seen people fire off the first thing that comes to mind in a text message in a business setting and almost always realize they weren't as precise as they wanted to be and have to attempt to correct themselves with follow on messages. This mistake and ensuing retraction almost always sours the deal.

Edit: addendum (I'm aware I'm doing exactly what I just made a case against)

Mine, and the Court's right now, expectation is that written communication does not need to be immediate. And since you have a chance to think through what you'd like to write, your first message has no reason not to be precise and correct to your intentions.

1 comments

How is the phone any less immediate that text messages? If anything, it's even more - you don't even need to press "send".
A phone conversation is understood to be free flowing. It's easier for us as humans to understand that someone is reasoning out a line of logic in real time over the phone. By contrast, a text is not real time, and should therefore be thought out before sending.
Fair enough, but that's only a reason to think out those text messages, not to avoid the medium. I occasionally keep drafts on my messaging apps for days, as I mull them over.
And if you think them out, then that's fine. But a lot of people think texts are hyper-casual and don't give them appropriate consideration.
I'd say the same of email - lots of people just reply without really thinking. Especially nowadays that they are integrated into smartphones along with SMS and such.