Alyssa Pagano: Over the weekend I sent about
128 text messages and I received 153.
We use texting so much to just make a plan,
ask someone a quick question.
And in some ways, it feels like it actually takes longer,
and it's a step backwards in communication.
You know, I'm standing there in my kitchen typing
and then waiting for the response
when I could have just made a quick phone call
and figured it all out in, like, one conversation.
Another issue I have with texting
is I feel like it kind of lends itself to miscommunication.
When you're texting with someone,
they can't always hear your tone of voice.
Or if you're doing it quickly,
you might not use punctuation correctly
and the meaning can be misconstrued.
So I decided I'm gonna try quitting texting
for an entire week.
I'm also not gonna use Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM,
WhatsApp, any sort of messaging system.
And I'm gonna use Slack on my computer
because I need it for work, but I'm not gonna use it
on my phone.
So anytime someone texts me, I'll just call them
if I need to respond.
So the goal is to eliminate
these, like, quick back-and-forth conversations that happen
through messaging platforms
and to replace those with real conversations,
which doesn't even sound like it should be that hard,
but I've already received one text message
while doing this interview.
So this is my third day without texting,
and I think that I've talked to
about six of my friends on the phone.
(phone ringing)
Are you at work?
Your voicemail box is full.
Can I call you later?
Um.
Okay, bye.
I can text again!
It's been a whole week,
and it was actually really difficult
and pretty inconvenient.
I ended up spending a lot of time on the phone,
which was nice in some ways, but also kind of annoying.
There's just this expectation that's hard to get rid of.
When someone sends you a text, they expect you to respond
within a certain amount of time,
and I just couldn't do that.
So I was keeping a list on my phone
of people who texted me so, at the end of the day,
I would call them back.
Remind me to call Adam at 7 p.m.
Phone: Okay, I'll remind you.
And then, you know, that meant
that some portion of my evening
was me making a bunch of phone calls
just to respond to people's text messages.
Phone: Call has been forwarded
to an automatic voice message system.
Hey Eliza, it's Alyssa.
I'm just calling to respond to your text message.
Anyway, I'm excited to spend the weekend with you too.
One person, I had never spoken to on the phone in my life.
We've never had a phone conversation,
so it's like a new thing.
Person on phone: That's kind of scary.
Pagano: Yeah, yeah.
Some of my friends responded differently than others.
Like, the friends that I see all the time
and communicate with all the time
were just sort of annoyed by it,
because it made their lives more inconvenient,
and they had to wait longer for me to respond
to a question.
But then friends that I don't see as much
or I don't talk to as much were touched by it.
They really liked it.
I ended up catching up a little bit
with some people who maybe were just asking me a question,
but I actually got to have a little conversation with them.
I think texting can be more convenient for certain things,
but calling someone is nice sometimes.
And sometimes it makes plans happen faster.
So this week without texting just makes me wanna
be more thoughtful about when I use texts
and when I use the phone.
I think texting works better for some things
and the phone works better for other things.
But I just don't want texting to be the default.
Phone: Two, zero, is not available.
The mailbox is full and cannot except any messages
at this time, goodbye.
Goodbye.