Friends who message you via less acceptable or egregious apps.

I don't know why this annoys me so much, other than that I'm just easily annoyed. And I have these egregious apps so, whatever.

You have an iPhone, so why are you sending me a message on Facebook for something you want a quick reply to? I don't have push notifications on whatsapp just because. I don't have Kik notifications. If you don't have an iPhone and are sending me a text-only message then just send me a message, don't whatsapp me.

I know it's stupid to be annoyed that someone whatsapped you but there's part of me that feels like an actual text message or, God forbid, a phone call has more value.

I have friends like this too. I assume it's because they have a data plan with few texts. Essentially the only reasonable excuse for choosing FB Messenger or WhatsApp or WhatEvrBllSht.

Mostly I just want people to phone me if they need to know something. And so much off app-message-planning to do something feels like putting that thing off or relegating it t being less important. And I feel like people do this in order to not make a plan to arrange something but to pretend to or make a tentative plan that they can rescind.

Meeting people seemed easier 10 years ago.

social media apps make the people you should be closest to be less close to you, and the people you forgot existed from twenty years ago closer than they should be.

Truth!

Never encountered this tbh; my friends seem to find the same way through the app wilderness as me?

And if I have missed Viber/Kik/OtherstuffIdontuseapp then ~ascii shrug~

Meeting people isn't really the problem here: it's getting your network on the same page iirc. And telling dad to stay away from facebook and messenger. Nomar speaketh truth tho. My hatred for facebook and its terrible timeline knows know bounds.

Facebook is summed up for me by the time i was friend requested by someone I didn't remember from a high school i went to where i'm not in touch with anyone, and three minutes after i accepted her request on my timeline i bore witness to a her telling her ex husband to stay the hell out of her life and, regarding their son, "HE DOESN'T WANT TO SEE YOU EITHER!" thanks, future times.

part of it is cultural and who has adopted things due to bleed-over. a bunch of indian coworkers use WhatsApp because of the international foothold

i used google hangouts to message a couple non-iphone friends because sms does crap media handling and could be read on pc, but switched to fb messenger because it's better

what is wrong with email

apps are bullshit, this is why we have (had) the web instead of aol keyword: mail

instant messaging

i'm not quite 30 yet, so pardon the ignorance, but at what age are you obligated to create and maintain a facebook page?

tbh we had the instant messaging equivalent of email in xmpp, an open protocol that was federated so you could pass messages across servers from different providers. if email from your ISP or whatever was still popular in the mid-2000s we may have ended up with IM accounts from those providers, bouncing around in an agreed-upon way like email is

but xmpp got to the brink before rolling back. aim, google talk, a bunch of others were kind of proprietary but played the xmpp game for a brief period. google jumped off the ship, WhatsApp (with a billion active users ?!?) uses a modded xmpp. so we end up using whatever works

meanwhile the most obvious inheritor of SMS, which now does behind the scenes stuff to get around limitations, is twitter's 140 character limit which was there to allow for some headers on top of the SMS max of 160

dynamicinterface if you've truly never had one, maybe when you need to share pictures of children with grandparents or w/e

as opposed to skype, or google hangout or just emailing and texting them pictures or any of the other 200 alternatives i could use to share photos?

I use facebook messenger more than imessage

the difference being perceived permanence -- shared to a group, you get albums and a timeline of photos. you could send via any of those and people could save or share, but a service where you go to an album or post and are scrolling through a point in time, to share a specific moment in time, is easier

it's like when your friends got back from their vacation and used to pass around the couple folders of developed photos, and they'd grab the best and put in a photo album. there are albums in social media, so you or your friends can refer to that time you took the family camping via "Family camping 2017"

i get it. facebook can be useful. i just pretty much never take photos of anything though so that use does nothing for me in particular. if i did take pictures i'd probably just sort my photos by date or put them in appropriately named folders or whatever.

my person

I do the opposite, I have a few photos here and there but usually just go on a trip or long weekend where I remember photos are a thing, drop them in an album, and my online social life is this scattered stone path of the idea I did something, a few times, across space and time

Email owns. I use Facebook Messenger too. And then there’s a little bit that happens in iMessage.

As far as pictures go, I keep everything in a huge iCloud Photo Library. There’s some stuff in Dropbox too. Share stuff here and there on a case by case basis.

Also, my iCloud Photo Library is very organized. lol

I like Facebook messenger and WhatsApp because of the Seen Message settings. If I text someone and they don't reply and it's about something that's timely then I can't be sure if they're around. Also a WhatsApp group chat is useful if you need to make plans with people whose numbers you wouldn't necessarily have in your phone, eg a staff night out with a team of thirty.

Phones and social media give me anxiety I prefer trees

I don't have Facebook, never have, and he only throng I regret about not having it is how much of a default communications method it has become. It's not like I don't have text, iMessage, WhatsApp, Skype, WeChat, email and a bunch of other ways people can get me. People will often message my wife on FB to get me and then I respond with on if the above.

Mostly I just want people to phone me if they need to know something.

god, the total opposite, actually phoning someone seems so intrusive and redundant now unless you've pre-arranged a time to chat or it's like a "hi i'm here where are you?" kind of call. hundreds of ways to get in touch with me, interrupting me and demanding i drop whatever i'm doing without warning is just unnecessary.

don't ever really mind what messaging app people use, though i prefer not to have to do twitter dms when i'm in the go as the android twitter app is barely fit for purpose and takes about a year to update, and often refuses for no reason. if you know someone well enough to be messaging them you tend to know where they respond quickest.

as much as social media in its sundry forms can be quite stressful, it's always good to remind yourself that you can curate it yourself! someone annoys you on facebook, mute them. constantly scrolling timeline makes you anxious, i get that, you just have to force yourself to step away from it. (having a crap old phone really helps tbh.)

and while some people can be annoying on social media, so many others are delightful or entertaining or any number of things that will brighten up my day.

yeah phonecalls are p outrageous. esp from businesses but also for any basic functional reason with friends.

xpost

i agree with that also. so many of my friends get irate about facebook and it transpires they never mute or unfollow anyone. it's p good at following commands.

lex otm. With some people I fb message them because I know it will go to more devices, and they'll see it on their laptop or tablet if not their phone

texting seems to have dwindled a lot in favour of whatsapp or facebook messenger.

as much as social media in its sundry forms can be quite stressful, it's always good to remind yourself that you can curate it yourself! someone annoys you on facebook, mute them. constantly scrolling timeline makes you anxious, i get that, you just have to force yourself to step away from it. (having a crap old phone really helps tbh.)

Having no phone at all helps even more! Though I do now have a 2G phone it was free with no contract in EE as sometime you have to make concessions

Its the general 'always on' feeling that gives me an underlying anxiety, it is an insult to reverie and the dream state

I only converse via email

I don't mind whatsapp - it seems well designed to its purpose - but Facebook messenger can gtfo. Can we all just agree to use text, whatsapp, or email please?

I deliberately havent installed that fcebook messenger app. If the website forces it on me as well, screw it. I've tried to tell people repeatedly that I dont fuck with fb messenger. Whats wrong with an SMS? It not like they cost money anymore.

The alt-app in my circle of peeps has been Viber for the most part. I looked at whatsapp for like 5 mins because a workboss demanded I hop on so she could send me some pics of the work halloween party. I left it off for weeks then fired it up to discover days and days and days of the Indian co-workers, all talking "off record" about shopping, lunch break spots, their kids... wtf. Uninstalled it after that.

One friend asked me to join kik ages back. I got a dick pic and 3 unsolicited come ons from strangers within an hour. The hell. Binned.

I love lunch

I like the FB messenger app, it seems pretty versatile, plus I can also use it to send regular texts.

ps: I'm elderly

whatsapp is superior to sms in all respects - group chat, read receipts, images/video etc. - it's totally become the standard among ppl i know

wtf can't believe ppl talk to each other

Even my mum uses WhatsApp and she uses no other social media platform at all, that makes it pretty fucking mainstream.

Facebook Messenger is complete trash though.

It's like ten times better than google hangouts, which is just sad

i don't have phone numbers or even email for most of the people I contact regularly on FB mesenger and I usually only use it on the computer anyway. they seem to have folded the app back into the fb app.

I don't get whatsapp. I have it, but the only people I know who use it are the teams I work with in Mexico and London. so I use it when I'm there.

Read reciepts are the devils testicles btw. how am I meant to politely ignore some idiots message if they see Ive seen it!?

you can turn it off in WhatsApp

the only person who communicates with me by standard text now is my mum

literally everyone else I know is through WhatsApp

WhatsApp is extremely popular, but I don’t use it and am not aware of many people who do.

it's used very heavily outside the US but not so much within

huh, had no idea. It's infinitely better than SMS

i could be wrong about that, its just based on my own observation

i mean, sure, there are times when this is a necessity, and have rec'd many lovely messages on all platforms, but i find the competitive practices of fb, google and apple in this space really offputting

texting is so limited, whatsapp trounces it in every way

WhatsApp >>>>>>

purely by accident/through circumstance i spend 90% of my time on wechat/line and the other 10% in sms, not because it's good but because it's there. the 4–5 people i'm closest to are facebook users and don't/won't use anything else.

it's pretty annoying to be passively squeezed out of social circles because i don't use facebook and old-timey friend groups have gradually forgotten i exist. i don't get invited to a lot of stuff because of this. recently i've considered making a facebook account but the downside is that i would have a facebook account.

Ive the same issue re Twitter. Dont ever look at my account, and sometimes find out I was hald-assedly invited to something important because I should have seen so and so's tweet about it. How is that any way to invite people to a thing.

also the way apps like whatsapp and linkedin nag the user to turn on notifications/share all contacts really fucks me off. i will decide how i use your app, thanks very much.

So no one uses Skype? I was under the impression that was one of the bigger ones.

years ago i asked linkedin to stop getting up my arse with the incessant "let us scrape all your contacts" nag screen and they were "guhh sorry it's a bug". it wasn't a bug.

xp i've used skype twice in the last two years, doesn't seem to be much need for it since every* app does voice/video calling.

What if the worst “app” to be contacted through is . . . ILX.

Every time on opening: "you have disabled push notifications" - yes, I'm aware of that. I was the person that disabled them.

ppl just use skype for video chat i think, or facetime

I have exactly 9 people who've ever whatsapped me, it was filed under 'Dating' at first because it was only when I went back into the scene that anyone ever asked to contact them on that. Mostly I use it when I'm contacting people out foreign, particularly if I'm sending a photo or something that I expect they'd rather receive via wi-fi than via a painful data plan.

Every time on opening: "you have disabled push notifications" - yes, I'm aware of that. I was the person that disabled them.

― Heavy Doors (jed_), Tuesday, 16 May 2017 11:39 (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't know whether whatsapp does this specific thing, but some apps hassle the christ out of you to turn on notifications, then barrage you with template nags begging you to open the app. all this cynical shit gets deleted.

I just had a customer complain his MMS messaging wasnt enabled on his phone, and my work colleagues answers were all "who uses MMS anymore!?". HELPFUL

agree, but generally speaking mms can be stupidly expensive if it's not in your plan. telstra was slogging me 50/75c per pic/vid last i checked.

"texting is so limited" what does this mean? why? what is wrong with it?

no sms group chat, no desktop client, no stickers

i guess I don't like talking to people that much

imessage does group chat, im not sure why SMS would need desktop access given its a phone thing, and stickers... gah!

fucken imessage. the messenger app for everyone as long as everyone has an iphone.

btw

im not sure why SMS would need desktop access given its a phone thing

i meant in reference to sms being limited. ftr i use desktop clients all the time, was only just using line to do exactly that.

only ever use skype or facetime when my parents phone me on it. in a weird way this technology, which i guess sort of did seem like how we imagined the future must be, seems to bore our generation but thrill the one that came before, at least ime. friends have told me the same thing about their parents and skype/facetime. a few weeks ago my dad facetimed me at about 1pm on a saturday, i was in bed with a horrible hangover, his face just appeared huge against the screen as he demanded help fixing the tv so he could watch a match that was starting in about 10 minutes - i then saw my own face as he saw it, bags under my eyes, his 34-year-old son obv in bed at 1pm, hungover. somehow managed to get through the call without permanently damaging our relationship.

WhatsApp seemed much more popular in the US several years ago when text messages still cost 10 cents each (or sometimes 20c) on many mobile plans. Now that texts are usually free here, WhatsApp use has declined.

I usually use texts or iMessage, which everyone with a cellphone (even a flip phone) will receive. Or email for long or more formal stuff.

ok, trying out whatsapp.
all ok on phone.
trying web/app version.
i am constantly being asked to scan the QR code.
i can then send a message, but next time, i have to scan one again.
i have ticked the 'keep me signed in' option.
is there a way to stop it demanding the QR code, or, is that just how it works ?

webb/app version

WHY

at work.
easier to chat to friends ...
as opposed to using phone all the time.

it's precisely 9,488 times easier to type with a proper keyboard than it is to dick around with a teeny tiny tappy-tap-tap phone keyboard with rubbish autocorrect

mark e: i think your thing is broken

will try the web/app version on my home based laptop later on.
could be a work based network restriction thing that makes me have to register every few seconds.
i totally agree re using a proper keyboard vs mobile.

if you don't use whatsapp ur old

https://media.giphy.com/media/xfD6mEBfQM3wk/giphy.gif

iirc what's app is ubiquitous everywhere except North America

based on the metric system obv

my coworker, originally from india, using whatsapp on his desktop computer as I dropped by this morning

only ever use skype or facetime when my parents phone me on it. in a weird way this technology, which i guess sort of did seem like how we imagined the future must be, seems to bore our generation but thrill the one that came before, at least ime. friends have told me the same thing about their parents and skype/facetime. a few weeks ago my dad facetimed me at about 1pm on a saturday, i was in bed with a horrible hangover, his face just appeared huge against the screen as he demanded help fixing the tv so he could watch a match that was starting in about 10 minutes - i then saw my own face as he saw it, bags under my eyes, his 34-year-old son obv in bed at 1pm, hungover. somehow managed to get through the call without permanently damaging our relationship.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Tuesday, May 16, 2017 9:06 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol. I always pull the old "let's switch to audio only as my connection doesn't seem to be that good" plug on unannounced video calls, they're a faux pas in my book. Though tbh my parents don't even know how to facetime, which is a huge blessing. Friends *know* this is not done.

yes, my parents constantly insist on facetime instead of a normal phone call. This is made worse by the fact that my phone is Android, so when they call on facetime, it comes up on my wife's phone, which she loves.

Oof. Grounds for divorce.

will try the web/app version on my home based laptop later on.
could be a work based network restriction thing that makes me have to register every few seconds.

well, installed whatsapp desktop app on home laptop and get exactly the same problem.
i checked, and there is no W10 app available via the Windows Store,
you have to get the d/l from the whatsapp website, and that only makes reference to W8, not W10.
suspect there is a slight bug when it comes to useage on a W10 laptop, hence no official app via the W10 store.

Hmmm, no such thing/bug on my w10 laptop. Only had to scan it once after installing it. I don't really use it on my macbook/w10 laptops tho.

i can of course use the website app as opposed to standalone, but just wanted to try and figure out the root cause.
that said, the friend i wanted to chat to decided she hates whatsapp,
so, sticking with messenger.

i use signal. i like it. only a few of my friends have it. so the feds can still read 85% of my communication. knowledge is power.

nope - checked, website version does the same.
weird little thing.
could be a setting in W10 (privacy setting), chrome setting, or a bug with the latest W10 build that came out last week.
cant be bothered to dig in further.

unannounced video calls

unacceptable. unannounced audio calls are bad enough.

FWIW when I referred to Skype I actually meant as a chat program, not the calls/video part of it.

We use it at work extensively to do workbased / group chats. I know Slack is the done thing everywhere else but I dunno.

Skype has the best emoji but nobody uses it for texting

using skype for texting is like buying a land rover for the spacious glove box

I think we just ended up using it for that cos we use it/all have accounts for other stuff... and Skype are a customer...

Sic otm about the emojis though, they're hilarious and fun.

https://az705183.vo.msecnd.net/onlinesupportmedia/onlinesupport/media/skype/screenshots/fa12330/emoticons/talktothehand_80_anim_gif.gif

the conclusion to draw from all this is that as usual tech companies have made our lives worse for their own ends

I use a combo of mime and interpretive dance.

trayce otm, ultimately it doesn't matter what we prefer because we end up using what everyone else uses

now that I know we can, I might sign all my ILX posts with a skype emoji

https://az705183.vo.msecnd.net/onlinesupportmedia/onlinesupport/media/skype/screenshots/fa12330/emoticons/discodancer_anim.gif