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I really can't stand texting personally. It astonishes me how much it's a step backwards in innovation for the convenience of companies being able to target and

I really can't stand texting personally. It astonishes me how much it's a step backwards in innovation for the convenience of companies being able to target and index conversations that people think are private better. Yet still, even voice recognition can't recognize when I say names of my friends that are from foreign countries, and it doesn't connect me with strangers that speak other languages. I think our tech focus on typed text has really stunted the growth of tech in the past few years a lot, also it does nothing to make sure our interaction become easier with differences in learning capabilities and disabilities that exist in our society. It's really a shame that voice recognition hasn't been pushed further because of all the effort put into requiring everyone to use tiny phone keyboards and frustrating emojis just to convey a message and then waiting for someone else to respond in a way that completely distracts people during normal activities like driving or crossing a street. It's simply not good progress to continue down that texting-based/focused path in my opinion for future progress.

mehrdada 5y ago
Text is much less disruptive to the people around you and also private. I probably would not be comfortable reading out most of my texts aloud without thinking twice even if recognition were perfect. (But it is not really just text. People send multimedia content all the time.)
- winternett 5y ago
  I understand your point, but there are numerous advancements like noise cancelling and other things that would be better developed if we weren't so focused on texting. For example, a phone could emit a static (non-irritating) tone to isolate spoken communication and then filter it out of voice communication. Simple sound-proof booths could be placed in many locations to allow for call privacy as well. At the end of the day, texting is probably just as insecure with cameras everywhere and with the fact that the messages are transmitted and retained over mobile networks in the same way as audio and video files would be, although the audio and video files would not inherently contain direct transcripts of the communication.
  - wolrah 5y ago
    Texting is asynchronous. If I have a question for you I can send it when I think about it and you can respond when you have time. If I call you, it's basically me saying "What I want is more important than what you're doing right now". Sometimes I may still want to do that, but certainly not always. I find it really annoying when someone insists on having a long back and forth conversation over text that could be handled in two minutes with a call, but there are a lot of things that don't justify calling someone. There's also the documentation factor. Being able to reference previous conversations is desirable in some cases.
    - toast0 5y ago
      Texting is also interruptable. If something happens around me, I can look around and then go back and catch the train of thought. If I'm on a call or listening to a voice message and there's a loud noise, I've lost the sentance. Sure, I can ask the other party to repeat, or repeat the message (or even worse, try to get it to go back just enough), but if there's a lot of interruptions, I may never get the information.
  - mellavora 5y ago
    > Simple sound-proof booths could be placed in many locations yes! the "Cone of Silence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence_(Get_Smart) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence_(Get_Smart) We need more of these!
  - kergonath 5y ago
    > For example, a phone could emit a static (non-irritating) tone to isolate spoken communication and then filter it out of voice communication. As if our cities were not loud enough. You might also find out that a noise that is not irritating to some parts of the populations are unbearable to others. This sounds like a very high tech solution in search of a problem, whilst the obvious answer is simple: just use text messages. > Simple sound-proof booths could be placed in many locations to allow for call privacy as well. So we have to isolate into some specific infrastructure to send a message? What am I supposed to do if I am late and in a packed train, for example? > At the end of the day, texting is probably just as insecure with cameras everywhere and with the fact that the messages are transmitted and retained over mobile networks in the same way as audio and video files would be, although the audio and video files would not inherently contain direct transcripts of the communication. What would sending audio messages change? Installing microphones in a finite set of booths sounds much more tractable than putting cameras (with a resolution high enough to make individual characters on a smartphone screen visible; none of them do that today) everywhere we can write messages. Voice recognition is accurate enough that you would not need any transcript to extract information from intercepted messages. Frankly, you sound like you have a personal issue with text messages, which is fine, but none of what you wrote makes any sense.

mehrdada 5y ago

Text is much less disruptive to the people around you and also private. I probably would not be comfortable reading out most of my texts aloud without thinking twice even if recognition were perfect. (But it is not really just text. People send multimedia content all the time.)

winternett 5y ago
I understand your point, but there are numerous advancements like noise cancelling and other things that would be better developed if we weren't so focused on texting. For example, a phone could emit a static (non-irritating) tone to isolate spoken communication and then filter it out of voice communication. Simple sound-proof booths could be placed in many locations to allow for call privacy as well. At the end of the day, texting is probably just as insecure with cameras everywhere and with the fact that the messages are transmitted and retained over mobile networks in the same way as audio and video files would be, although the audio and video files would not inherently contain direct transcripts of the communication.
- wolrah 5y ago
  Texting is asynchronous. If I have a question for you I can send it when I think about it and you can respond when you have time. If I call you, it's basically me saying "What I want is more important than what you're doing right now". Sometimes I may still want to do that, but certainly not always. I find it really annoying when someone insists on having a long back and forth conversation over text that could be handled in two minutes with a call, but there are a lot of things that don't justify calling someone. There's also the documentation factor. Being able to reference previous conversations is desirable in some cases.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Texting is also interruptable. If something happens around me, I can look around and then go back and catch the train of thought. If I'm on a call or listening to a voice message and there's a loud noise, I've lost the sentance. Sure, I can ask the other party to repeat, or repeat the message (or even worse, try to get it to go back just enough), but if there's a lot of interruptions, I may never get the information.
- mellavora 5y ago
  > Simple sound-proof booths could be placed in many locations yes! the "Cone of Silence" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence_(Get_Smart) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence_(Get_Smart) We need more of these!
- kergonath 5y ago
  > For example, a phone could emit a static (non-irritating) tone to isolate spoken communication and then filter it out of voice communication. As if our cities were not loud enough. You might also find out that a noise that is not irritating to some parts of the populations are unbearable to others. This sounds like a very high tech solution in search of a problem, whilst the obvious answer is simple: just use text messages. > Simple sound-proof booths could be placed in many locations to allow for call privacy as well. So we have to isolate into some specific infrastructure to send a message? What am I supposed to do if I am late and in a packed train, for example? > At the end of the day, texting is probably just as insecure with cameras everywhere and with the fact that the messages are transmitted and retained over mobile networks in the same way as audio and video files would be, although the audio and video files would not inherently contain direct transcripts of the communication. What would sending audio messages change? Installing microphones in a finite set of booths sounds much more tractable than putting cameras (with a resolution high enough to make individual characters on a smartphone screen visible; none of them do that today) everywhere we can write messages. Voice recognition is accurate enough that you would not need any transcript to extract information from intercepted messages. Frankly, you sound like you have a personal issue with text messages, which is fine, but none of what you wrote makes any sense.