A few days ago someone said they had sent me a message. I checked my text messaging apps and there was nothing there. I also checked my email and, again, nothing. Finally, I called her up to ask how she had sent it and she had to think about it for a minute. “I used the messaging app,” she told me. And then I asked, “which messaging app?” Turns out she sent it by Facebook Messenger, which is one of many messaging apps I have on my phone. It could have also been via WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Google Chat, iMessage or perhaps one of the social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, X or Instagram.
While I love to see competition, I’m not all that happy by what feels like the balkanization of messaging. It wasn’t too long ago when, for most people, the only two options were email and text messaging. And one of the advantages of both of these relatively old-fashioned methods is that they’re non-proprietary. Unlike many messaging apps, I don’t need to know what app you’re using to send me an email or a standard SMS text message nor do I care what type of phone you’re using or who your carrier is.
With most other messaging apps, both the sender and receiver need to be using the same app and, in some cases such as Apple’s iMessage, they have to be using the same type of phone. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said they’ve sent me an iMessage or asked to have a Facetime call only for me to have to tell them that my Android phone isn’t compatible with those apps.
This issue came up in the car the other day when my wife Patti and I were driving to someone’s house. She said that the address was on her phone and then took several minutes checking through multiple apps until she finally found the one with the message containing the address.
Prefer email
With a few exceptions, I try to avoid proprietary messaging services. For my routine non-urgent messages, I prefer email, especially if it contains an attachment or information that I might need to locate later on, such as an address, a receipt or a photograph. Aside from being universal, email is archivable. My Gmail account is like an enormous filing cabinet. I often go back and look for messages — sometimes years old — that contain information I need. Finding information in old text messages is almost always difficult and often impossible.
I try to reserve texting to messages that are relatively urgent like “I’ll be late” or “where are we meeting this afternoon?” And when a text message comes in, my phone beeps or vibrates, indicating that it’s something I need to look at right away, which annoys me if it’s just a routine message that could have been sent by email and often angers me if it’s a commercial message, spam or some type of scam. Although you can configure an email app or service to notify you of incoming messages, many people don’t because of the sheer volume of email, most of which are not that time sensitive.
There are occasions when I use proprietary apps. If it’s highly confidential, I might use an encrypted app like WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. But most of my communications aren’t that confidential so texting and email and adequate. I sometimes use Facebook Messenger if I know how to find the person on Facebook but don’t have other contact information, but I usually ask them to respond by email because I often forget to look at incoming Facebook messages. The same is true for direct messages on X. I use WhatsApp with some of my overseas friends and contacts because it’s convenient having a single app that I can use for free calls, texts and video chats. And, unlike Facetime, it doesn’t matter what type of device they and I are using.
Another problem I have with text messaging and messaging apps is that they’re mostly used on phones. Though there are ways to access texts and many other types of messages from a computer, I usually get them on my phone. That’s fine for reading and OK if I want to dash off a short response but, I’m not all that good at typing long messages on my phone. I learned to type on a keyboard when I was a kid and am very good at it so, if I have a choice, I’d rather respond from my PC if I have a lot to say. I’ve tried learning to type on my phone with two thumbs and, though I’ve gotten better at it, I still find it tedious and still make too many errors.
In some ways, today’s messaging environment reminds me of what it was like before the internet when you had to be on the same email system as the person you were messaging. Services like MCI Mail, AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy weren’t interconnected. Internet email changed all that but now we’re back to a gaggle of unconnected messaging apps.
Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at [email protected].