I don't like texting. Having to hunt and peck letters on a tiny keyboard is tedious and painfully slow.
If you call, I have to drop everything to respond right now. If you leave a message, I have to listen to the whole thing instead of just reading a short note.
Callers too often feel they're the only one taking up your time. Very few employees can take calls any more due to the sheer volume of messages.
Published directives online work best, then email, then text, then calling, then in-person. Employers can't have it both ways; employees have work to do and can't waste time answering phone calls from people who communicate poorly.
One well-worded intranet publication or email will prevent 100 phone calls.
I am with you. I graduated in 1964 and I tell people I refuse to participate in the 21st century. I have a simple flip phone with a truly pathetic keyboard.
Texting is GREAT when I want to say “I’m on my way, ETA 30 minutes” and don’t need a long phone conversation to say that. But when text lovers try to have what SHOULD be a phone conversation with me via text, I call them. If it goes straight to voicemail, the conversation is over. I’m not carrying on a convoluted discussion with my thumbs.
I’m 74 and do a lot of my computer work these days on my IPhone (basic low cost model - not the $1400 one).
If the text is beyond a few words/couple of sentences, I activate the keyboard microphone and dictate the text. It takes a little practice to get the punctuation commands down (like “open paren, ” not “open parentheses”). There are online aids to help you get the hang of it. After you have dictated the text, you absolutely must go back over the draft in detail to correct not only the punctuation, but also deal with all the helpful edits that have been done by the automatic assistant (which I have yet to figure out how to turn off).
Then send the correspondence on its way.
By the way, I use the same voice-to-text feature to write letters and emails in Notepad. When I’ve got the text down to about 85 or 90% complete, I email it to myself. Then copy and paste it into either outgoing email or into a word processing program. I finish formatting it, give it a final review for style and content and send it out.
I don’t have a voice-to-text application on my laptop, so this is a great help when I’m trying to get some correspondence done.
It just takes practice.