How many unread texts do you have, right this second?

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Maybe I’m unpopular or maybe I’m OCD, but I do not let my texts pile up. I need to see what’s happening. But in the last few years I’ve been stunned by friends who have, like, 100+ unread texts, and - I am a fairly go with the flow person about a lot of stuff but this is a thing where I just have to comment, have to ask, like, WHAT? How are you not at least reading these texts?

Poll Results

OptionVotes
0 37
10 2
20 1
100+ 1
50 0
100 0
Oh, man, step off, if people really need my attention they’ll call me 0
I don’t have a cell phone 0


Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:23 (two years ago) link

Lol, this is the trve shit. My wife does this and so unless (1) she is right next to her phone when the text arrives and (2) hears the notification, she never knows she gets texts.

PBKR, Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:27 (two years ago) link

Like, I'm on group texts with her family and giving her updates.

PBKR, Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:31 (two years ago) link

Wow.

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:31 (two years ago) link

The group text is such a lie. It’s lonelier than being on social media, because the more people who are part of it, the more texts into it are ignored or skimmed over.

GENERALLY

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:33 (two years ago) link

Lonelier because it is assumed that a limited pool of people would communicate in a more enthusiastic or efficient way, but nope

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:34 (two years ago) link

Feeling that one

Groovy Situation Vacant (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:35 (two years ago) link

The only group texts I’m in with more than 5 people (including me) are my work one and my street one. Both are frequently muted but I can’t stand seeing the unread notification so I’ll look in anyway.

I enjoy all my group texts, though some are better than others.

gyac, Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:47 (two years ago) link

unread text messages much easier to keep at zero than emails

Groovy Situation Vacant (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 May 2022 23:49 (two years ago) link

i said "0" but "read" is definitely in quotes. ... Actually, I am pretty good about at least skimming them? ... I also do not turn on "read" notifications so that people can see whether I've seen the texts or not. I feel like it's an invasion of my privacy. Like, fuck if I'm revealing the fact I am reading texts at 2am. ... I also kinda don't understand people who do have those notifications turned on, unless they are like, old people like my mom, who has no idea that she could turn the notifications off. ... Is it a generational thing? I notice younger people seem more "okay" with the notifications. Maybe I'm wrong?

sarahell, Friday, 20 May 2022 01:59 (two years ago) link

this is zero for me but like 85% of my texts are my spouse and i coordinating shit around child care and other logistics.

my text response timeliness sucks, i could stand to work on that.

call all destroyer, Friday, 20 May 2022 02:04 (two years ago) link

135 but most are notifications, only a few are from friends. Still, a text to me is a low-priority communication and I don't check them that often nor do I feel like it's imperative to answer them right away or ever, it's not an email

Guayaquil (eephus!), Friday, 20 May 2022 03:31 (two years ago) link

This is the opposite of email for me, I have zero unread texts. I tend to see them as they come in, it's part of my workflow (and of course family/social ones get mixed in there too). Also I get way less text spam than email spam, maybe I'm just lucky, don't tell the spammers I said that.

0 always

Spottie, Wednesday, 25 May 2022 18:22 (two years ago) link

Usually about 10-20, but not really. The vast majority of those unread messages are a "thumbs up" or a "heart" response to my sign-off at the end of an exchange. I don't bother to click through to mark it as read. The notification remains unread until my next conversation with that person, or at the end of a week when I get tired of having 10-20 "unread messages" in my inbox.

a legible shriek (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 19:42 (two years ago) link

0

Doodles Diamond (Tom D.), Wednesday, 25 May 2022 20:05 (two years ago) link

I don't bother to click through to mark it as read.

yeah ... I am the same with venmo notifications. 86753

you can't start a fire without my dick (sarahell), Thursday, 26 May 2022 19:30 (two years ago) link

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Tuesday, 31 May 2022 00:01 (two years ago) link

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Wednesday, 1 June 2022 00:01 (two years ago) link

I have zero. But I don't text. This might be a little mini-micro-generational thing, but I got on the internet in the mid-1990s, at a time when mobile phones were still business tools. It was the year before the year before every single schoolkid in the UK suddenly had a mobile phone. The year before the year before the year before. I remember blinking, and then suddenly every schoolkid had a mobile phone *and had always had a mobile phone*. And yet I didn't have one, and my IT-literate friends barely used theirs, and only then really for business.

Because the novelty wore out and they needed to send precise multi-paragraph emails, and even in 2022 mobile phones aren't great for that. The old Psion organisers were pushing it. I mention this because I've probably used a mobile phone more in the last couple of years than in the preceding two decades, and only because the world has reached a point where literally everything has an app that works fairly well in a useful way.

Still, for the record I have 39 unread emails, 3,869 unread Reddit notifications - are they emails? automatic notifications? I have no idea - and I think the last time I checked my Wikipedia talk page was in 2011. There comes a point in life when you stop looking forward to new messages and start un-looking forward to them. Looking backward at them. Not looking forward to them. At them.

Dis-looking forward. There comes a point in life when you realise that other people are not the answer, and will not save you.

This message is not affiliated with ZTT's Incidental Series. "I didn't say it was". But now you have.

Ashley Pomeroy, Wednesday, 1 June 2022 17:53 (two years ago) link

pretty much all of them because all of my friends use Messenger so texts are all spam or misdirects like "HI FRANK HAVENT SEEN U AT THE SPA IN A WHILE WANNA GET UR DICK WET CALL 18885554555"

Gymnopédie Pablo (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 1 June 2022 23:24 (two years ago) link

Oops, I was thinking unread emails rather than unread texts, so voted 100+. My unread texts are usually 0, unless I just woke up or didn't have my phone with me for awhile.

Lee626, Thursday, 2 June 2022 01:31 (two years ago) link


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