Text Messaging: Best Way to Communicate?
I came across the article Gmail Preferred By Students, But Nothing Beats Texting, this morning via Twitter (HT: Terry Storch & Matt Knisely).
Lots of interesting things in this article but a couple stood out to me in particular.
The article begins:
Today’s high-school and college students got their first email account at an average age of 13. Most students have had one of their email addresses for 8 years and have an average of about 2.4 addresses each. But if you really want to reach these students, you should forget email. Send a text message instead.
And ends:
In the end, the survey finds that students do use email – perhaps even more than we realized – but if you really want to reach them, you should do it via text or IM. For marketers, this means that the easy method of sending out newsletters and coupons to mass email lists may become a thing of the past – only 16% of students read marketing email. Companies will have to come up with new ways to to advertise to this demographic. May we suggest social media?
Why is this interesting to me? Because I have long wondered, especially as it relates to ministry if we are communicating, or trying to communicate to an audience in a non-effective mean, or in a way that is less effective in not only communicating the gospel, but just basic information such as times, dates, events, details, etc.?
Looking Back
In June I posted this short blog, Classic: Email and the Phone are Slow and Backward. The article, Big Blue Embraces Social Media was about how IBM was adapting to social networking and new avenues of communication, especially among its younger and newer employees. They said,
Adapting these tools, according to IBM, is also important for recruiting. Hotshots coming out of universities are accustomed to working across these new networks—and are likely to look at a company that still relies on the standard ’90s fare of e-mail and the phone as slow and backward.
My entire post was:
I still use email and the phone, but I understand what they are saying. 9 out of 10 communications with my college students was via text messaging and Facebook.
And at least 5 out of 10 of my communications with staff was via text, Twitter and Facebook as well.
I know some churches have done away with work email and are now communicating and collaborating on inter-office wikis.
What is your pervasive form of communication with friends, family and co-workers?
Looking Forward
As I think about that post from June, it’s become more increasingly clear the need to re-evaluate how I communicate, and the tools that I use.
I have the 1,500 a month text plan…and I pretty much use all of them. In fact, my wife and I are looking to get an unlimited text messaging family plan. That being said, that should be an indicator of the importance of text messaging in my context (former college pastor, social media/ministry author, social circle of many 22-35 year olds). You may be in a different context, and text messaging is not that primary.
That means on average I sent out 50 texts, or Twitters a day. That’s low compared to some of my friends, and high compared to others. But it has become the primary means of much communication.
Why? Because I think it’s short, concise, and to the point. That’s why Twitter is gaining popularity and more businesses, churches and organizations are getting on Yammer. In a busy world people are looking for more effective and efficient means of communication. When text does not suffice, then email or phone is better. Obviously, being in the presence of the person and talking in person is the best.
But in a busy world, we can’t always meet face to face, and we always can’t get on a long phone conversation….and we don’t have time to look through hundreds of emails a day.
I think that’s one reason text messaging is so popular. I also think it’s fun.
All that being said, it’s important for us as people to think more critically about what is not only the most effective and efficient means of communication, but in what ways can we maintain our humanity in a tech driven world that aims for shorter and shorter discourse and sound bites? How does this effect/alter our opportunities to communicate the Gospel in this context?
Have you evaluated your context? What forms of communication is the most effective? Why?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think this speaks to the trend of progressive communication. The biggest trend is on-demand (or subscription) based content. One of the reasons email is becoming less effective is that it can be penetrated by unwanted messages. As it stands now SMS and IM are immune (although not completely) to unwanted communication, but as this changes another form of custom communication will arise.
Who knows what it will look like?
Pardon my intrusion, however I couldn’t help but to contribute a quick post. There are many text messaging solutions onthe market better adapted to allow your constituents to opt-in and delivery messages more ‘precisley’ than twitter.
You are correct, and although I’ve been in the biz of providing mobile consulting and applcations for more tan 6 years, I’m at a loss to explain the expotential growth in the U.S…now more than 80 Billion a month.
It’s personal, that’s the key, and if always treated as such, your message will get through almost immediately.
Regards,
cal
Excellent article Rhett, I am actually going to use this within the company that I work for and how we can reach out to students who are apart of the scholarship program here.
I do not text nearly at the amount I could because it feels impersonal. I got into Twitter because you got into it, haha. It is ok and a good way to communicate different thoughts, news articles, etc., but still it is impersonal.
Online chat is more personal, as you and I have had some minimal conversations on facebook.
But all in all, nothing beats face to face conversations. I would give up texting and twitter and even email if I could sit down for an hour and clearly convey ideas and see/hear a persons emotions in what they are attempting to communicate.
Becoming a bullet-point generation allows us to just make ideas good but not great because we end up always looking forward to the next best thing.
humanity + tech = cyborg.
and that’s what we don’t want.
Thanks for all the comments everyone. You help provide me some new thoughts and insights.
@John, maybe we are splitting hairs, but I’m not talking about taking a technology device and humanizing it…I’m talking about how we maintain our humanness amidst all our technology use. Like providing the human touch as Ben mentioned…face to face conversations when we can do it, instead of using tech, etc. I think we are going to have to wrestle with this as more and more things are done technology wise…I’m not suggesting we create a race of cyborgs, though I’m sure people are thinking about that.
If we are on FB, Twitter, blogs…all day long…how do we not let those things rob us of our sense of what it means to be human? That’s what I’m wondering and concerned about.
Marcus…right on about the subscription model…pulled content I think it’s also referred to (not sure though)…email is killer to people, especially as we get masses of forwarded, unwanted email.
rhett