[LINK] Study of non-users of Internet - I hate IRC etc.

[Chirgwin, Richard]

Robin - having just come back from the UK, I will agree with you on all
points except this: there is a valid use for SMS, even if you hate using it
(I did!).

It came into play for me in the UK for two reasons. (a) Making phone calls
roaming from an Australian phone is horrifyingly expensive; and (b) London's
mobile networks stink.

If I tried to call the friends we were visiting to line up activities,
dinners, where to meet etc, I would suffer the worst, bar none, mobile
service I've ever encountered. Even with towers everywhere, it's almost
impossible in London to maintain reception for the whole of a call.
Moreover, the networks are compressing their bandwidth to hell and carving
the time slices too thinly, so you chronically lose parts of words from the
other end of the call (especially if there's been a short silence).

Even with its many shortcomings, it was easier to send an SMS saying "meet
you where?" than to try and conduct a conversation. Especially when the
dropouts meant calling back and another flagfall.

In the hotel room, my mobile saw four networks from different parts of the
room. It's most disconcerting to start a phonecall on BT Cellnet, and when
it drops out, have the phone tell you it's logged into Vodafone...

So I can see the point of SMS in that circumstance. We ended up using it
almost exclusively...

Richard Chirgwin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Whittle [mailto:rw at firstpr.com.au]
> Sent: Sunday, 20 April 2003 13:13
> To: Link mailing list
> Subject: Re: [LINK] Study of non-users of Internet - I hate IRC etc.
> 
> 
> Brenda wrote of chat / IRC etc., which she apparently likes and finds
> valuable.
> 
> It cannot be assumed that generally experienced Internet uses 
> like chat
> - IRC, Instant messenger etc. and therefore that those who don't like
> these have not properly explored this aspect of Internet 
> communications.
> 
> I despise them!   They are slow, painful, have room only for short
> sentences, involve me in hurrying to type because it is taking up
> someone-else's time, gives me no time to think straight.  I truly
> despise IRC etc.!
> 
> Give me email and phone calls and save me from IRC etc. and SMS text
> messages!
> 
> Chat only works with someone in real-time.  If they are there I would
> vastly prefer to talk with them.  The cost is immaterial 
> compared to the
> value of our time and the desire for good communication.  (I can call
> friends in the USA for $5.50 for 3 hours with Optus and I often do.)
> 
> I know chat can work for three and more people, but that gives me the
> horrors trying to communicate properly with two people or more via the
> slow, limited, line at at time thing of chat, especially since most of
> my sentences don't fit on a line.  Some commercial instant messenger
> systems have a very strict length limit too.   I tend to 
> communicate in
> paragraphs anyway . . . 
> 
> Its not that I am a lousy conversationalist - I just think SMS is
> pathetically slow and limited compared to email or a voice message and
> that chat is sound-bite instant-gratification el-cheapo cut to pieces
> doing in ASCII what should be done with voice.
> 
>   - Robin
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