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Text messaging has become the prevalent form of mobile communication worldwide. an average of 357 texts per month in [Q2 2008 vs] an average of 204 calls I

by corin_ 16y ago

Text messaging has become the prevalent form of mobile communication worldwide. an average of 357 texts per month in [Q2 2008 vs] an average of 204 calls I would think this suggests that calls are still the bigger method of communication. The average call will last much longer than what could be written in 160 characters. Also, a ninety second call discussing something could easily span a number of text messages back and fourth. Edit: New point after reading further: Just look at your average e-mail today, he noted. Many can be summed up in the subject line, and the rest often contains just a line or two of text asking for a favor or updating about a particular project. First, I don't accept the premise. Trying to suggest that 160 characters is more or less enough for the average email is laughable. Hell, a lot of the time it's not even enough for an SMS message or tweet. Second, why are they even being compared? Is SMS meant to be just the same as email but on your phone? Not in my book...

masklinn 16y ago
> Second, why are they even being compared? Is SMS meant to be just the same as email but on your phone? Not in my book… They are both ways to interact with others. The argument here is that most communication do fit in 160 characters when pared down to its essential components, and thus for most communications SMS are sufficient to replace emails.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  Now say that in 160 characters. :)
  - masklinn 16y ago
    Both are communication channels. 160 characters is enough for most thought to come across. Therefore SMS can replace email in most cases (though not all).
alain94040 16y ago
calls are still the bigger method of communication I coined an expression: "one lunch is worth a thousand tweets." It got a good laugh from the audience at the last founder showcase. What I really mean of course, is that human contact is making a come back. Yes, you can tweet and text. But at some point, it feels all so detached. You'll crave actually meeting people in person. I think that will be a key trend of 2011, "back to reality".
pnathan 16y ago
Running some code over War and Peace from Project Gutenberg gives these numbers for sentence length. I cleaned the text of non-alpha | {sentence terminators}. Then I discarded any sentences with less than 4 characters under the assumption that they were spurious (ie, artifacts from the boilerplate PG text). Text with artifacts assumption: STDEV: 95.0115812751 MEAN: 74.4095505188 N: 26681 Text without artifacts assumption: STDEV: 82.3010550235 MEAN: 76.425092356 N: 30805 Looking at the high point of the first standard deviation of the artifacts-removed text, we see that it is at 169 characters. Same point for the text with artifacts, we have 158 characters. So assuming that the translated War and Peace represents a reasonable sample of English, 160 characters is fairly close to the length of a sentence. edit: formatting.
- true_religion 16y ago
  > So assuming that the translated War and Peace represents a reasonable sample of English, 160 characters is fairly close to the length of a sentence. I would say the mean is close to the length of a sentence, and the first high mark via standard deviation is a long sentence. So a standard SMS should be able to fit 2 or so normally worded sentences or 3 concisely worded sentences.
  - pnathan 16y ago
    IMO post-Hemingway English has shorter sentences on average than it used to; I wouldn't mind targeting, say, Twilight with my code and getting the stats on it, but I am loath to steal Twilight just for personal amusement.
hammock 16y ago
"First, I don't accept the premise. Trying to suggest that 160 characters is more or less enough for the average email is laughable. Hell, a lot of the time it's not even enough for an SMS message or tweet. Second, why are they even being compared? Is SMS meant to be just the same as email but on your phone? Not in my book..." Have you considered the idea that maybe your writing is just too wordy? You could easily reduce your 327-char comment to 110. Look at what I did below - much better! SMS is not long enough to replace emails. Often, it's not even long enough for me to write a thought or tweet.

by corin_ 16y ago

masklinn 16y ago

> Second, why are they even being compared? Is SMS meant to be just the same as email but on your phone? Not in my book… They are both ways to interact with others. The argument here is that most communication do fit in 160 characters when pared down to its essential components, and thus for most communications SMS are sufficient to replace emails.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
Now say that in 160 characters. :)
- masklinn 16y ago
  Both are communication channels. 160 characters is enough for most thought to come across. Therefore SMS can replace email in most cases (though not all).

alain94040 16y ago

calls are still the bigger method of communication I coined an expression: "one lunch is worth a thousand tweets." It got a good laugh from the audience at the last founder showcase. What I really mean of course, is that human contact is making a come back. Yes, you can tweet and text. But at some point, it feels all so detached. You'll crave actually meeting people in person. I think that will be a key trend of 2011, "back to reality".

pnathan 16y ago

Running some code over War and Peace from Project Gutenberg gives these numbers for sentence length. I cleaned the text of non-alpha | {sentence terminators}. Then I discarded any sentences with less than 4 characters under the assumption that they were spurious (ie, artifacts from the boilerplate PG text). Text with artifacts assumption: STDEV: 95.0115812751 MEAN: 74.4095505188 N: 26681 Text without artifacts assumption: STDEV: 82.3010550235 MEAN: 76.425092356 N: 30805 Looking at the high point of the first standard deviation of the artifacts-removed text, we see that it is at 169 characters. Same point for the text with artifacts, we have 158 characters. So assuming that the translated War and Peace represents a reasonable sample of English, 160 characters is fairly close to the length of a sentence. edit: formatting.

true_religion 16y ago
> So assuming that the translated War and Peace represents a reasonable sample of English, 160 characters is fairly close to the length of a sentence. I would say the mean is close to the length of a sentence, and the first high mark via standard deviation is a long sentence. So a standard SMS should be able to fit 2 or so normally worded sentences or 3 concisely worded sentences.
- pnathan 16y ago
  IMO post-Hemingway English has shorter sentences on average than it used to; I wouldn't mind targeting, say, Twilight with my code and getting the stats on it, but I am loath to steal Twilight just for personal amusement.

hammock 16y ago

"First, I don't accept the premise. Trying to suggest that 160 characters is more or less enough for the average email is laughable. Hell, a lot of the time it's not even enough for an SMS message or tweet. Second, why are they even being compared? Is SMS meant to be just the same as email but on your phone? Not in my book..." Have you considered the idea that maybe your writing is just too wordy? You could easily reduce your 327-char comment to 110. Look at what I did below - much better! SMS is not long enough to replace emails. Often, it's not even long enough for me to write a thought or tweet.