"I'm just so bad with my phone"

[slickfast]

How do people get away with this? I know someone from work who rarely replies to teams messages - it's usually "sorry I didn't see this" or "I'm just so bad with messages and getting back!"... same friend won't reply for weeks on WhatsApp, but is on Instagram posting everyday. Wtf!

She's not the only one, I know loads of people like this. Post a lot on Instagram but never get back to you because they're "so bad with their phone" (clearly they're not!) Even my little sister is like this!

Anyone else found this? I just find it so rude...

I'm one of these people. I sometimes look at the message which requires a bit of thought and I'll forget it.

I did have a friend who'd moan if I took more than 2 hours to reply but would take a day or two to reply.

I'm bad with my phone! In my defence we get NO signal in our house at all, so I only receive any messages when I go out somewhere. I'm also not someone who is glued to my phone constantly, I barely use the thing and it spends most of its time sitting on my bedside table and not used as much more than my alarm clock!

See this I can understand - what annoys me is the posting on Instagram but blatantly ignoring messages for weeks (and I mean weeks!)

I can literally see that person online on Instagram - so it's hard not to take it personally when it happens over and over

I'm this person, my phone pings, buzzes, vibrates & dings. I only know what it is when I look at that site or whatever
If its urgent they'll ring me I'm not welded my phone and often leave it at home
You are being silly

Well, for me, it's a mixture of things.

I do have a number of issues with my phone, but I don't want to replace it & they don't bother ME that much, I have an iphone6s & I don't want anything physically bigger, or really to pay ££££ to replace it 💁🏻‍♀️

I don't do SM, so I'm not ignoring friends to post on insta Tik tok etc, but MN is a bit too engrossing!!

I'm good with a bit of back & forth with several close friends, but one friend sends war & peace text messages, and I often don't have the capacity to write long replies & I can't just write 'ok then' (or whatever) so the fact I have to make time to reply properly puts me off.

then there's all the FOG ones, 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

I have a few people that leave me on 'read' but that's ok, they'll get in touch when they want their dog looked after or a lift somewhere. I know what they're like & choose to keep them in my life.

mysteriously one of my god daughters is much more communicative by WhatsApp in December 🤣🤣

you can't control others, you can only choose your own reactions & behaviour to their behaviour 💁🏻‍♀️

I've turned WhatsApp notifications off because I am a member of a group and it was pinging every 5 mins with irrelevant stuff and driving me nuts. So now I don't get the notifications I rarely remember to check WhatsApp, so it's quite possible that someone may message me and I genuinely don't see it, despite being on Facebook or Messenger multiple times.

Yes. it's a complete non-excuse. I prefer it when people just say "sorry for the slow reply" or whatever rather than pretending not to have seen a message etc.

Phones are bullshit. I have a lot of respect for anyone who doesn't allow it to rule their lives.

We are not allowed a phone in the workplace at all....banned completely

And I love it!!!

@SittingTrot

leave it at home

Doesn't it cry for you?? Mine told me that was illegal 🤣🤣

kids/school etc I wouldn't feel right not being contactable (despite being ancient so living for years before mobile phones!)

plus it's my camera & a bit of a security blanket since my accident.

That sounds amazing!

I hate the way people are so desperately attached to their phones.

@Valid8me If it helps, you can change the notifications for specific groups or chats. You can change the alert tone, turn notifications off or archive the conversation so you don't even see it when you open the app, without the potnetial drama of leaving the group. Just if you'd prefer to have notifications on for other messages if it wasn't for that group.

You can mute notifications for that group and leave them on for your personal contacts.

My Teams notifications are switched off - we have a group chat with all members of our team, which pings with every message/like/meme etc that gets posted. Nothing to do with my work - so I've turned the notifications off.

Ping - team member A - "I'm going for lunch now"
Ping - team member B - "Ok hun"
Ping Ping Ping - team members C/D/E - "thumbs up emoji"
Ping - team member F - "enjoy!"
Ping - team member A - "Back now!"
etc etc etc

Just NO.

I will give that a go, cheers! I don't use WhatsApp very much so didn't realise I could do that, I just turned them all off

Work on the basis that it is personal.

Maybe they are like me. My phone is somewhere, probably a bag or coat I used days ago. I am using my tablet that doesn't have a phone as my eyesight is poor and if I were using ig or FB I would be on the computer as it's fiddly on a phone. I'll get back to texts etc when I see them but it could be days

@SkylightSkylight div

Does that person need to be responding to teams messages when they are not at work? Using instagram in their own time is fine, being involved in work related things? Not so fine. Maybe she just has herself a clear boundary?

Can't stand people who think that because you're on your phone for one thing, you have to therefore be on your phone for THEM.

I use my phone for a million things and not all of them require the same amount of bandwidth. If I'm doing banking or medical admin, I will see your message come in but I won't focus on it. Yes, you can see I was online on Whatsapp, but I was responding to a friend going through some shit or working out logistics in a group, so I couldn't respond to you that minute. Yes, I was online, I was picking a song on Spotify and not messaging anyone. And if I'm on a walk and I see an interesting building it takes two seconds to take a picture and send it to Instagram, whereas I haven't replied to your message because that would mean sitting down to type it out properly and ignoring the people I'm actually with.

I tend to save "replying to casual, non-timely messages" for when I'm in a relaxed state of mind with little else to do first, which makes me worse than I want to be about responding quickly. But it is what it is.

Another annoying subset of this are all the dating threads where someone's got themselves into a tizzy because they can see someone online but he hasn't messaged THEM. Because there's absolutely nothing else he could be using his phone for.

Lol I'm this person. But I don't get offended when people take ages to reply to me either.

I usually see a message, but dont get to read it properly so my intention is to reply later when I'm not rushed off my feet.

So if I post on Instagram when I finally get to sit down, it looks like I'm blanking the other person, but I just forgot.

By the time I remember, I either don't have my phone on me or I'm busy so more days pass without a reply.

By that point it's too late, so I just leave it.

I don't think it's healthy to be available all day every day to everyone.
I often leave mine in another room or put it on do not disturb.

@gannett you summed it up perfectly.

Because in life we are now utterly bombarded with messages and tbh it’s so easy to just think ‘reply to that later’ then forget. If it’s to do with making plans I often need a day or two to check the train times, ask for a lift to the station, arrange care for DD etc. If it’s general chat then there’s usually something else to be done first particularly if it’s one of those long ‘catch up’ messages. My aunt is the worst for this, sends a 3 page message and if no reply that day she will send a passive aggressive ‘are you ok’ follow up. Just makes me not want to reply to those people.

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻