This era, texting is gradually replacing the culture of calls, and this has been made simple and cost-effective with the usage of social media, which works with data. Even making calls has been made simpler via these social media apps, requiring just data and not cutting into the airtime balance. I love it, no doubt about it, because it has saved me a lot of stress and money too. However, in situations where I need to reach out to someone, the first approach that comes to my mind is via a call.
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Although this depends on the kind of person, for instance, if it were my dad, I would call directly because he isn’t active online and is very sluggish in reading his texts. Sometimes, text notifications pile up at the top of his phone, congesting the notification bar, and he isn’t bothered. In such a situation, I would make a direct call instead of bothering with texts.
Apart from this specific regard for people, I am naturally the calling type. It’s not like I don’t text, I do, but I rely more on calls for communication. So, when I need to reach out to someone, most times I would first dial their number. If the person doesn’t pick up, I would resort to texting, mostly using the SMS format before switching to online platforms.
In situations where I need the person’s attention quickly, say in an emergency, even if the person is online 24/7 and I am confident they will read my message, I would still choose to call first. There’s an African saying: When a real problem happens, the victim will start speaking their native language and forget the borrowed official language. That’s exactly how I react in such situations. I’m sure it’s not only me who behaves this way.
For me, if someone doesn’t respond to my text for a long time, say for 24 hours, I wouldn’t get angry. It’s possible they didn’t see it, probably because they have many piled-up messages that are unattended, just the way I have many messages unattended to, both in SMS and online. Most times, it’s tiring to open all those messages, especially the spam and unnecessary ones, like those from telecommunication servers. Using myself as an example, I have so many unread messages, and there’s every possibility I might not notice an important new message on time unless I sit down to sort through them.
However, for calls, they usually show up on the phone as a missed call and are not easily ignored or swayed off. So, if I try calling someone and don’t get feedback for about 24 hours, I would assume there’s something wrong—unless the person intentionally decided to overlook it.
Thanks!
I wrote this in response to #novemberinleo prompt, Day 26.