to think you don't text people when you'd expect them to be asleep?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I have terrible insomnia and have been awake since 3am . I was actually just drifting back to sleep at 5am when I received a text from a friend!! So that's me woken up for the day. I can't think why you would do that?

I'm not permanently attached to my phone so I use it when I need to. I'm guilty of not thinking of the time. I assume others do the same as me.

For those that have their phones on silent or DND with only selected numbers allowed through, what would you do in the following situations?

(Genuine not snarky question as both have happened)

1. DC out late and having their bag (so phone, keys, money) nicked, ringing you from a friend's phone?

1. Call from hospital on withheld number where relative has been admitted in emergency?

Also, anyone who has ever been rudely awakened by a BBC breaking alert will know to put their phone on silent. I almost shat myself when it happened to me!

Havent seen the message you mean but Tbh I have a smart phone and still don't get how to use half of it. I find Google a great help because I can't be arsed with all of the tech. I'd say you get a phone for what you need it for and find those functions. Anything else would be either a bonus or a disinterest.

If someone did text in middle of the night and I didn't have dnd or silent then I'd ask them not to do it again. Which is what I did when someone sent loads of chain texts. If they persist they are a pita.

I can switch my phone off and set the alarm and the alarm will still go off! Definitely silence your phone.

The last few phones I've had (so going back the last 5 or so years) you can set specific times for DND to automatically kick in. So mine is on silent by default from 9.00am-5.30pm and again from 10pm-7am.

Even if people had the decency not to text at weird times, businesses send out marketing emails at all hours of the day and night so that would wake you up anyway, surely?

I keep my phone downstairs and sleep upstairs.

In the situations you describe Pink the first number I give to any institution like a hospital etc is my land line, and the number all the kids have memorised is the land line.

If we are away from home the land line can be diverted to a mobile, but that is only relevant when we are on holiday really.

Pink

1. I would expect them to ring the landline
2. I would expect them to ring the landline

OP.

• Get a landline handset upstairs.
• Buy an alarm clock

I'm in the camp of 'texts are sent at the convenience of the sender and read at the convenience of the recipient'. If someone needs you urgently they should have/know your landline number.

PinkissimoAndPearls for me my dc isn't born yet. My antispam call app blocks withheld numbers so it wouldn't get through anyway. Landlines can get through and the local hospitals have always had displayed nmbers when they call.

The hospital would use my landline. And if a child was out late then I'd leave my phone on until they got back - frankly I wouldn't be asleep anyway until my baby was safely tucked up .

Older I think I'm the only one on the thread! I absolutely lurve Nokias - the cheaper the better as far as I am concerned!

if your to cheap to buy a phone that you can't control in a basic way then it's your problem not mine

Gosh, now that is twatish.

I have a smartphone thanks. I have the settings arranged to suit me. If I ask you not to text at night, don't text at night.

I wake up to anything between 4 and 100 texts and whatsapps as I live in Asia but am on loads of whatsapp groups with UK friends. I just leave my phone on silent.

1. DC out late and having their bag (so phone, keys, money) nicked, ringing you from a friend's phone? Too young

2. Call from hospital on withheld number where relative has been admitted in emergency? They'll have to wait till the morning but as I live 3000 miles away I couldnt do much anyway.

Hopefully over time as more people get the idea of asynchronous conversation and how to configure their phones we will not get people making requests on what time their friends are allowed to text them.

It will sound as unreasonable as 'Don't email me at night time' or 'Don't send me post which arrives on a Tuesday as that's when I have a lie in'

In the meantime, we should try to be sensitive to those who see it as the sender's responsibility to take into account the recipient's alert settings and sleep patterns, and if they ask us not to send text messages at certain hours then do try to comply, even though they are the one being U by making such demands!

We use an alarm clock and people contacting us in an emergency use the land line. Mobiles usually downstairs and recharging at night. I didn't realise so many people slept with them. Mine is usually on silent so it doesn't disturb me at work anyway

"BTW I can't have it on silent because what if a relative needs me during the night in an emergency and I didn't realise because my phone was on silent?"

I assume you no longer have a landline?

This is one of the many reasons we still have a landline. My (inexpensive) phone also has various options for turning sound off, one of them being for texts and notifications only.

"1. DC out late and having their bag (so phone, keys, money) nicked, ringing you from a friend's phone?"

I would make sure I could be easily contactable in those circumstances. Although DD doesn't know my mobile number off by heart she does know the landline number.

NattyTile surely nobody would text in an emergency, especially in the middle of the night? They would ring to make sure of a response.

I think it's fine to ask people not to text you at night however in today's 24/7 society where people expect supermarkets to be open 24 hours, phone banking 24 hours etc so many people don't work 9 to 5 then it's a bit unreasonable to expect it to be a default. I had to remind one of my best friends recently not to call me on the landline after 11pm (our usual time for chats as she knows I finish work at that time) as my OH when he's on earlies would be asleep as he'd be up at 4.30am. I wasn't annoyed , between us with my 2pm to 11pm shift and his mix of earlies, lates and nights I don't expect anyone to know what is a good/bad time to call , half the time I don't know !

^Texting is asynchronous communication.

You send it when it's convenient for you. They reply when it's convenient for them.

Expecting people to not text at certain times of day is as unreasonable as expecting people to reply to texts immediately^

^^This. If your phone disturbs you with texts at night, it is because you are using your phone wrong. It's not necessary to have it beeping and bonging at all times of day and night anyway. .

No-one with any sense would use text as the first-line of urgent communication, so just have your phone set so it doesn't make a sound when texts arrive. Problem solved. People text from other time zones. Texts sometimes take hours to arrive anyway, so who's to say that they sent it at a time that is not satisfactory to you?

I'm unfortunate enough to have had 2 relatives pass away within the last year or two and all the urgent middle of the night bad news calls have come through on the landline. Most people don't use mobiles for that sort of thing, because they don't expect people to have mobiles on in the bedroom.

If we are talking about people using the functions on their phones, why can't the sender just send a scheduled text with a more appropriate delivery time? If you know someone is likely to be asleep, type the text at 5am, schedule delivery for 9am, everyone's happy!

Seems to me the most twattish thing is to own a phone you don't understand how to use but then if you are the type not to get along with technology then the odds are your friends are too so you are likely to follow the same conventions anyway.

Absolutely ^^ - I remember when I got my new phone I specifically asked if it came with an instruction book - I was told yes, but it didn't and I really don't understand 90% of the functions - but I do know how to turn it to silent and use the alarm at the same time.

My sister woke me at 5am last week with a text about the Brad/Angelina split. However, I thought this was appropriate.

I always put my phone on the bedside table, insancerre in case I get burglars in the night and can phone for help without going downstairs to confront them which would scare the hell out of me.

I must admit that I hardly ever remember to put it on silent though and thus far I've not been woken up by anyone in the early hours except once when it really was a life or death situation.

I rarely send texts at all (assuming we mean SMS - I do use WhatsApp and messenger which for my circle have made SMS largely obsolete) so I am not texting in the night...

But

Are the "don't disturb me by texting when I might be trying to sleep" people aware of the sleeping patterns of every one of their friends, or are they just expecting others to be aware of their sleeping patterns?

Some people go to bed at 9pm and get up at 5am, some go to bed at 2am and get up at 10am, some work variable shifts meaning their sleeping and waking times are different on different weeks/ months and may be asleep during the day.

It would seem risky ever to text someone unless you know their current schedule - which is fine if you only text a hand full of people, but MN is always suggesting text as a way to reply to children's birthday invites and all sorts of situations involving texting people you barely know...

It would seem impossible to get it right if the onus is on the sender to know the recipient's sleep patterns and schedule...

YABU, because SMS is asynchronous technology. I know most of us treat it as synchronous, and most of the time, there is no noticeable delay - but if you've ever been in an area with a very weak or no signal, sending and receiving of texts will be delayed, and they can then turn up at seemingly random points, which has included around 3am in my case.

In my own case, I too have fronds all round the world. Checking my last few texts from the phone company, power company and a couple of other organisations, they only seem to have sent texts after 8am, but I haven't enough examples to know if they always do (only had this handset a month.) And I also get the occasional spam text about PPI or having won millions or something.

So you can ask friends not to text you overnight (most won't anyway, on account of being asleep themselves,) but if it's really vital that texts don't interrupt you, then it's down to you to manage that, just because of the way SMS works.

*For those that have their phones on silent or DND with only selected numbers allowed through, what would you do in the following situations?

(Genuine not snarky question as both have happened)

1. DC out late and having their bag (so phone, keys, money) nicked, ringing you from a friend's phone?

1. Call from hospital on withheld number where relative has been admitted in emergency?*

DND on the iphone will let any call through if they call twice in 2 minutes