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I've been tempted to do this. The thing that stops me is how good texting is on smartphones. The author writes about this, and pretty much confirms my fear that

I've been tempted to do this. The thing that stops me is how good texting is on smartphones. The author writes about this, and pretty much confirms my fear that it would be a major step backwards and would put me out of sync with almost everyone in my life. I'm awkward enough as it is; I don't need to add new barriers to interacting with me. :) ETA: Honestly if Apple would open up iMessage, I could get rid of my iPhone, which is of course the reason they don't open up iMessage. A couple other things I've thought about, more on the social media angle, are (1) starting a personal web site again, and (2) a different kind of social media site. For (1), I've already got a little VM that runs my email and some quickie web apps I threw together. Why not stand up a personal site too, like a lot of us used to have, where I can share all the stuff I'd normally be putting on Instagram, etc.? Obviously that's adding friction for folks too, but I'm less concerned about that stuff getting ignored. For (2), and bear with me because this is going to sound a bit woo-woo, I think a social gratitude list could be really powerful. Maybe not a big hit, but definitely powerful for people who would use it. I say this because I used to be on an email list with some friends where everyone would write ten things they were grateful for that day and then send it to the list. Now, if this is not a practice you're comfortable with, you're probably dry-heaving right now; I did too at first. But once I got past the fact that it's not very cool, I found that it was a fantastic way to keep up with folks. (That's in addition to the mental health benefits, which I think are evidence-based but I'd have to double-check that to be sure.) Amazingly, I didn't even notice a tendency for it to degrade into performativity or attention-seeking. Overall I just think it would be a structure that would enable some of the positive aspects of social media while discouraging or eliminating the negatives.

everdrive 6y ago
>The thing that stops me is how good texting is on smartphones. There used to be nice dumb phones with physical qwerty keyboards. They were wonderful for texting. It's a real shame they're not made anymore.
- gman2093 6y ago
  I think there's still a market for slide-out keyboards on devices. They felt a bit janky in the 00's but I would still be first in line for the next android (or even ios, unlikely) device with such a feature. In high school I could send texts without having to look away from my counter-strike games.
  - puetzk 6y ago
    Unihertz still makes lots of the out-of-fashion form factors: https://www.unihertz.com/titan.html https://www.unihertz.com/titan.html is a blackberry-esque android 9.0 device.
- kelnos 6y ago
  It's been over 10 years, so my memory is almost certainly faulty, but I feel like I was nearly as fast with T9 predictive typing as I am with a swipe keyboard on a smartphone these days.
mikepurvis 6y ago
> I don't need to add new barriers to interacting with me. :) This is an issue for me too. I know the meme is "your real friends will still make the effort and call you / hang out with you / whatever", but I don't think it's that simple— we (especially in the pandemic, but really always) rely on social gatherings/media as a proving ground for acquaintanceships, a place to banter back and forth and onramp a relationship to the point where it would be not-weird to actually arrange an intentional activity or get-together. And the reality is, when I've had acquaintances fall off my social media radar or be otherwise difficult to get ahold of, I just can't be bothered. When every person but one is in a FB Messenger group chat, and one person wants to be texted-with about what the plans are, that person inevitably gets left behind. So maybe there's some FOMO going on here, but I don't think I'm at a place in my mid-thirties where I'm ready to effectively shut the door on those opportunities.
- nineplay 6y ago
  The cheerful "your real friends will.." meme ignores the possibility that you'll find you have no "real" friends. Turns out even casual friends are better than none, and you aren't likely to find any real friends if you are hiding offline, waiting for everyone to come to you.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- astura 6y ago
  Agreed, all close friends I've made recently I wouldn't have made the transition from casual acquaintance to close friend without social media. Social media provides zero friction interaction and the sum of interactions can grow a friendship. Plus I don't find social media AT ALL toxic and I only spend maybe a half hour a week total on it. OTOH I find people complaining about social media being toxic is becoming extremely toxic.
boring_twenties 6y ago
You could get a Google Voice number and use the web app to text people. It rather sucks, or maybe it just sucks in Firefox, I don't know. But it's usable enough, you just have to hard-refresh the page every now and then. At least they finally started allowing downloading of "unsupported" attachments, which was the biggest problem before.
- mantlepro 6y ago
  I opened an account with voip.ms after ditching my smartphone last year and was pleasantly surprised with the reliability and interoperability. Works decently well with Linphone, ATA devices, forwarding to a dumb phone, land line, etc. With it you can also receive SMS messages (and reply to them) by email.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    Thanks, I'll check it out! Google Voice, while better than nothing, has quite a few limitations I'm not enamored with.

everdrive 6y ago

>The thing that stops me is how good texting is on smartphones. There used to be nice dumb phones with physical qwerty keyboards. They were wonderful for texting. It's a real shame they're not made anymore.

gman2093 6y ago
I think there's still a market for slide-out keyboards on devices. They felt a bit janky in the 00's but I would still be first in line for the next android (or even ios, unlikely) device with such a feature. In high school I could send texts without having to look away from my counter-strike games.
- puetzk 6y ago
  Unihertz still makes lots of the out-of-fashion form factors: https://www.unihertz.com/titan.html https://www.unihertz.com/titan.html is a blackberry-esque android 9.0 device.
kelnos 6y ago
It's been over 10 years, so my memory is almost certainly faulty, but I feel like I was nearly as fast with T9 predictive typing as I am with a swipe keyboard on a smartphone these days.

mikepurvis 6y ago

> I don't need to add new barriers to interacting with me. :) This is an issue for me too. I know the meme is "your real friends will still make the effort and call you / hang out with you / whatever", but I don't think it's that simple— we (especially in the pandemic, but really always) rely on social gatherings/media as a proving ground for acquaintanceships, a place to banter back and forth and onramp a relationship to the point where it would be not-weird to actually arrange an intentional activity or get-together. And the reality is, when I've had acquaintances fall off my social media radar or be otherwise difficult to get ahold of, I just can't be bothered. When every person but one is in a FB Messenger group chat, and one person wants to be texted-with about what the plans are, that person inevitably gets left behind. So maybe there's some FOMO going on here, but I don't think I'm at a place in my mid-thirties where I'm ready to effectively shut the door on those opportunities.

nineplay 6y ago
The cheerful "your real friends will.." meme ignores the possibility that you'll find you have no "real" friends. Turns out even casual friends are better than none, and you aren't likely to find any real friends if you are hiding offline, waiting for everyone to come to you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
astura 6y ago
Agreed, all close friends I've made recently I wouldn't have made the transition from casual acquaintance to close friend without social media. Social media provides zero friction interaction and the sum of interactions can grow a friendship. Plus I don't find social media AT ALL toxic and I only spend maybe a half hour a week total on it. OTOH I find people complaining about social media being toxic is becoming extremely toxic.

boring_twenties 6y ago

You could get a Google Voice number and use the web app to text people. It rather sucks, or maybe it just sucks in Firefox, I don't know. But it's usable enough, you just have to hard-refresh the page every now and then. At least they finally started allowing downloading of "unsupported" attachments, which was the biggest problem before.

mantlepro 6y ago
I opened an account with voip.ms after ditching my smartphone last year and was pleasantly surprised with the reliability and interoperability. Works decently well with Linphone, ATA devices, forwarding to a dumb phone, land line, etc. With it you can also receive SMS messages (and reply to them) by email.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  Thanks, I'll check it out! Google Voice, while better than nothing, has quite a few limitations I'm not enamored with.