Family /Friends who dont have text messaging

Tao

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 6:45 pm

zaq wrote:

The fault here lies not with the fact that the woman didn't have texting, but with the fact that she lacked the menschlichkeit to make the phone calls. How many families could have been involved? Eight? Twelve? Certainly not fifty.

yes, about 8 or so. But let's say the time her daughter had a baby, so she went with her to the hospital. Now, she didn't have access then to her house phone since she was in hospital. But had she had a cell phone, she could have just sent one quick group text and that would've taken only a few seconds.

GLUE

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 6:47 pm

Tao wrote:

My son went to one of those babysitters who worked out of her house. The babysitter did not have text. Actually, she didn't even have a mobile phone. It was very yeshivishly run, so many times I would show up with my toddler and one of her kids answered the door and said there's no babysitting today because her daughter had a baby, or she wasn't well, or whatever. It's a lot of effort to call up each of us individually so instead she just relied on us showing up and then being told to take our kids back home.
My boss was not happy, and neither was I.

The problem is not that your babysitter did not text. The problem is your babysitter was not reliable.
My mother is one of the old style yeshiva babysitter for a few decades the only time she canceled at the last minute with out finding a sub was the day of my son's funeral. The day her own mothers funeral she found a sub.
My mother always make show to let people know in advance when she is taking off, she would not just cancel at the last minute.

JasmineDragon

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 6:52 pm

When we were dating, my husband had a no-texting kosher phone. I told him that, when we get married, I need him to have texting. There are too many little things that are better communicated over text, like "can you pick up milk on your way home from work", or times it's not appropriate to call but ok to text, like on a crowded bus.

Ideally, I'd have liked him to have WhatsApp, which is how I communicate with everyone else in my life, and would give me the ability to send pictures and voice notes and my location when we're trying to meet somewhere. But it's important to him to have a kosher phone, and regular texting is good enough. I really don't get why it's not considered kosher (and relatedly, why they don't make kosher phones with keyboards, my poor husband is stuck texting on a flip phone). I mean, it's just text. What can you send in a (non-image) text that's worse than what you can say on a phone call?

Tao

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 6:53 pm

JasmineDragon wrote:

I agree completely. I also do not think it's addictive. It takes forever to type on one of those phones, its not the same as whatsapp.

jkl

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 6:58 pm

GLUE wrote:

Agree. Even if it was an emergency, she could have made one phone call to any parent and asked her to forward the message.

Tao

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 7:00 pm

jkl wrote:

Agree. Even if it was an emergency, she could have made one phone call to any parent and asked her to forward the message.

Possibly would have been a good idea. Except for the times when she didn't have access to her home phone...... Twisted Evil

jkl

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 7:18 pm

Tao wrote:

Possibly would have been a good idea. Except for the times when she didn't have access to her home phone...... Twisted Evil

She could have placed a call right before she left the house.

shanie5

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 10:40 pm

I prefer text too. Espescially when it's just a simple question. I prefer a "Hi, how are you? How many people will be coming tomorrow" text than a 10 minute conversation with all the polite necessities of small talk before the actual question can be asked. ANd then they say "fifteen" but you hear "fifty". In text that mistake is much less likely to happen.

Tao

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 11:00 pm

jkl wrote:

She could have placed a call right before she left the house.

Not necessarily, I don't know what time she left the house. It could have been 3 in the morning....

GLUE

Mon, Mar 11 2024, 11:18 pm

Tao wrote:

Not necessarily, I don't know what time she left the house. It could have been 3 in the morning....

There is a type of people that even if they don't have a cell phone they will find a phone to let people know.
There are other types that will not care.

She sounds like the type that even if she had a cell phone it would not occur to her to let people know, she will just tell them in the morning when they come.

essie14

Tue, Mar 12 2024, 2:52 am

In this day and age, and in my circles and my community, it's impossible to function without whatsapp. You can't be in a carpool, or a chug, or get any updates from the school, or any community notifications. Everyone I know has whatsapp.
Some people choose not to be in every group, but they acknowledge that they may miss out on important info. Usually at least 1 spouse is on every essential group (vaad bayit, shul notifications, neighborhood watch group, etc)

elusivity

Tue, Mar 12 2024, 3:04 pm

It depends on the community you choose to be a part of. If you're in a community where whatsapp is the norm and decide not to have it, you will be left out and people will be annoyed that they can't get hold of you. But if you're in a community where noone has whatsapp/text/whatever, it's a much easier decision to make and stick to.
personally we live in a very frum area where almost noone has smartphones and a lot of people don't even have text on their flip phones. at the same time we're the only ones in our family without a smartphone and whatsapp so we do get pretty left out of things and we often hear news long after it's gone stale. Sure, we get annoyed when we're not informed about things (because we still speak to family on the phone at least once a week, so why wouldnt they mention it!), but the flip side is that we're happy in our little private bubble. If something is important, we'll hear about it eventually. Noone ever missed a wedding because they didn't have whatsapp.