What’s your preferred mode of communication?

[Chirawehaha]

A friend and I were discussing how we have never - in 15 years of being friends - spoken on the phone. We video chatted during lockdown, but mostly just keep in contact via What’s App and meeting up in person. This is the case with most of my friends and family. Unless it was an
actual emergency, ringing someone wouldn’t even occur to me.

Talking about it at work and most of my office felt similarly. However, it’s a small office, so that’s only nine people. 🤣

What’s your preference? Calling? Texting/What’s App? Video chatting? Saving it up till you can meet face to face?

I have friends and family on three continents, so What’s App is just really easy and free. Other things are now, as well, but What’s App was first (at least, as far as I’m aware).

We also hate voicemail.

Whatsapp for friends and most people. Phone for parents. Facetime for adult child.

I hate voice notes. I just can't manage to speak like a normal person on them. I will listen if someone sends me one but I'll reply with a normal Whatsapp message.

No need to ask, it's how all of my friends and family send most messages.

Video call for close family. WhatsApp for friends.

Calling or meeting would be my preference. Messaging is just tedious.

I phone some friends as I don't see them regularly - twice a year at most and we phone for an hour and sometimes two hours - every month. We don't have any contact outside of the phone so rarely send texts or emails to each other unless forwarding something that might be of interest.

I think it depends on who is on the phone though as for one particular family member, I dread seeing her name on my phone and by the end of the phonecall I feel like we've had a tense argument so avoid answering as much as I can.

But for people I see regularly, I prefer to text or whatsapp.

I despise voice notes and never listen to them. I will listen to a voicemail of a missed call at some stage over the week after getting it but I delete voice notes. I find them rude and lazy to be honest. If someone has something to say to me that they'd rather not pick up the phone to say, then email me. Or ring and leave a voicemail if necessary but to bypass the phone and send a voice note only - I won't ever listen to it or reply to it.

DH - F2F, or phone call, text or FB Messenger if not at home.
DCs 2 and 3 (still living at home) - same as DH.
DC1 (living with partner), no F2F obviously, phone call, text or FB Messenger.
My DP - same.

No video messaging (we all know what we look like). Have never used WhatsApp in my life.

Zoom for group chat.
WhatsApp video.
WhatsApp./ phone. But only on speaker.
Facebook chat video.
Text. Whatsapp .. both in browser on computer.
Actually holding a phone to my ear is last.

Hate whatsapp. Someone sends you a paragraph with three different questions in it, you answer the first, hit return because that was quite a chunk of answer, they start replying to your answer while you're replying to their second, and it all gets messy very quickly. Also you can't hear their reactions, so a whole level of communication is lost. Phone is a lovely way to have a long chat while curled up comfortably not having to worry about your appearance.

But even when phone was the preferred method (letters being too slow), there were those who were ready to chat for ages in the phone, and those who kept phone calls very short and business-like.

All those who prefer whatsapp - do you never feel "let's just pick up the phone, we could sort this out in seconds"?

Text or WhatsApp, message in instagram. Please just don’t call me.

Txt/messenger/Snapchat/what ever like it for daily communicating about very little. Great fun.
A cup of tea now and then for better communicating and the joy of being together.

Same

Email. I love email. It's killing me that it's going out of fashion, and everyone wants to bloody text. I hate texting with a furious passion - don't mind receiving them so much, but I absolutely cannot stand writing the blasted things. writing ... otherwise known as painfully pecking out messages letter by letter, and getting it wrong half the time ... it makes my eyes and fingers hurt. Yes - typing on a phone is a pia, but emails on a desk top you can rattle out almost as fast as speaking.

So or keeping in touch with friends - 1) phone 2)email 3)whatsapp - but it's lovely to receive letters so I send them to any of my friends I know appreciate them.

WhatsApp is my preferred then text.
I call my parents and very occasionally speak to a couple of friends other phone. I prefer talking in person.
I hate video calls.
Emails have their place but generally for more work/business/life admin stuff.

Never. I can send a Whats App in seconds. I don’t find typing or reading to be at all onerous. It can be super enjoyable or super efficient, dependent on what you need.

Whereas I find phone calls to be an utterly tedious waste of time.

Voice notes are fine if they are less than a minute, any longer and I hate them. They take ages to listen to and I’m never sure if I can listen in public (forget listening at work, I’m a teacher). I prefer a phone call, a proper chat. WhatsApp is fine for short messages.

Whereas I find phone calls to be an utterly tedious waste of time. How can talking to your friends be a waste of time?

And for arranging things, phone calls are quicker because you're not waiting for someone to get round to answering in gaps in whatever else they're doing. Shall we meet? Yes, any time next week except Friday, OK, Tuesday?Yes what time? 2.30, at the usual place? Yes, that's great, see you then. Less than a minute by phone, anything to half an hour of more elapsed time by whatsapp, even if you are doing 6 other things at the same time.

Depends who it is. I couldn't be arsed with constant to and fro texting so for a proper conversation I prefer a call. If it's just a general thing then a text is preferable.

1. Text/whatsapp
2. Phone calls- I ring my best mate and she rings me every month or so for a catch up- usually a 2 hour call as going through loads of stuff via text would take ages. However, we arrange calls for when its convenient for both of us, we dont just ring each other randomly expecting to chat as we are both v busy and thats not realistic to achieve with work/childcare etc

I've always been a text-based person. I always preferred writing letters to a phone call (plus it used to be the case it was cheaper than phoning, which was important on limited pocket money.) I still wrote actual letters to some people.

So WhatsApp or text or email.

I will do phone calls or video calls, I just don't usually initiate them. And I've sent voice notes - I've a friend who is blind. We are lucky to have technology that suits different needs.

How can talking to your friends be a waste of time?

By being a tedious phone conversation. I talk to them just fine via What’s App. As I just said.

Less than a minute by phone, anything to half an hour of more elapsed time by whatsapp, even if you are doing 6 other things at the same time.

So what, though? It gets sorted, it happens in a manner and at a pace that works for both (or all) the parties and - if we want - we’ve also done six other things. To top it off, we all have a handy written account of the conversation and our plans, that we can refer to if we need to. Tick, tick, tick.

Work: Email. Hate it when anyone calls me.
Friends: Messenger or Whats app. I would assume someone had died if any of them called me (we are all pushing 60 so it's not a generational thing I don't think)
Adult DC: Message every day and speak on phone a few times a week - at least once.

Smoke signals, the way I’m feeling lately!

Telephone for me. Or email.

WhatsApp or sms.... always hated phone calls and REALLY loathe FaceTime, so intrusive and It's okay to say tell the person it's not a good time, they carry on anyway! This leaves me the option of being rude or cutting them off 🫣
However love a WhatsApp thread so never far from contact