By Apoorva Khandelwal
Did you ever consider rules for texting???
The first rule is keep the other person’s schedule in mind. No, I am not asking you to know what they do every single hour of the day. I am telling you to be aware. If your friend is at work, don’t constantly keep texting them, they are busy. Does your friend like to sleep in late during the weekends? If you don’t text them early (9 am). Be nice about it, not everybody is available at the same timing as you.
Double check the spelling. It may seem like a waste of time checking the spelling, but trust me it’s helpful. Autocorrect can be cruel sometimes. Do this when you are texting somebody you don’t know well. If you text your friend something that autocorrects they wouldn’t find it super awkward as you are already close to them. But if you are texting a colleague or a boss, 100% check the spelling. You wouldn’t want to be losing a job by a text would you?
Another rule is don’t text in all caps. It seems as if you are angry at them. It seems as if you would be shouting. The person you would text in all caps would be upset or sad because of this. Note: If you are mad at them, then that’s the only exception.
Don’t bury into your phone when you are hanging out with someone. This is because it seems as if you don’t care about them. You decided to show up and committed to meeting with them but you simply aren’t really hanging out with them. Especially don’t do this if you are hanging out with someone you barely know. My friends sometimes still do this and it comes off slightly rude to me because I made time for them in my schedule to meet them but they don’t care about my time. One exception for this is like when your sister is in the hospital. You probably would want to be kept updated on what’s going on with her. But make sure to tell your company or friend that you will keep checking your phone due to this.
Adding on, not everything has to be done by text. In some instances, calling is better than texting. If you are watching TikToks and find one that is funny, please do send it to me. If you end up in the hospital by a car accident, call me, don’t text me that.
Not everybody responds to texts quickly. As I said before, be mindful of their schedule. They are probably busy so they won’t be able to text you right away. Right now we are in a pandemic and everybody is glued to their phones, so if somebody doesn’t respond to you after a few days or weeks go by, they probably don’t want to talk to you.
Some of these etiquettes are common sense but not everybody knows about them. There are certainly several more rules to texting but those are the ones I find most important. Have fun texting!
References:
“Is It Rude to Text Someone at a Time of Day When It Would Be Rude to Call Them?” Quora, www.quora.com/Is-it-rude-to-text-someone-at-a-time-of-day-when-it-would-be-rude-to-call-them.
Nickalls, Sammy. “The 18 Unwritten Rules of Texting You Should Know.” Lifehack, Lifehack, 2 Sept. 2014, www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/the-18-unwritten-rules-texting-you-should-know.html.
Texting Etiquette: A Brief Guide to Polite Messaging, 12 Mar. 2020, www.grammarly.com/blog/texting-etiquette/.
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