Maria: Hey, right Dear Listener! So, text messages. Rory, first of all, what are text messages, and what's going on?
Rory: I don't know what's happening with these questions, because my understanding of a text message is something that you send from your phone, like an SMS, which is not something that many people do in my country anymore. We have texting with the phone, and then we have messaging with apps like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. So, I see these as two distinct and different things, but it's possible that the examiner sees them as the same thing.
Maria: So, if I say text messaging, this means that I write a message on Telegram or WhatsApp, right?
Rory: Well, some people can see it this way. I don't. I see them as different things.
Maria: But what do you say? If you sent me a message on Telegram, what do you say?
Rory: Yeah, I messaged you on Telegram.
Maria: Okay, or I sent you a message on Telegram, or I just wrote to you on Telegram. So you don't use any like, I texted you, I wrote a text.
Rory: No, I rarely hear people talking about that. But is that just because I'm not talking about it with people? Or is it because there's a totally different thing that we use to talk about texting and sending messages now, because the technology is so different from what it used to be?
Maria: Yeah, people. So, when we talk about Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, or any other chat channels that you are using, local chat channels, so we say that I messaged you, or I sent you a message, or I wrote to you on Telegram, on WhatsApp. But, for example, certain businesses, certain companies could text you, not using any chat channels, they just send you a text, texting, okay? They send you an SMS. And perhaps some companies still do it. So if you don't have any Internet, for example, they can send you a text, an SMS. But these days, everybody is messaging on Telegram, WeChat. So you can answer these questions, talking about messages on Telegram, on different chat channels, okay?
Rory: That's why I used some hedging language here, and I said, unless you count using those apps as texting, in which case I'm doing it all the time. And it's good to use alternatives to if.
Maria: You can say that most of my messaging is handled by apps, which means that I message different people using different apps, like Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat, and you can say that I never send any SMSs. Oh, a very interesting question, do you reply to messages as soon as you receive them? So you got a message on Telegram, and then kind of like, how fast should you answer, Rory?
Rory: Well, this is a personal choice. But I always think that I own my phone, and my phone does not own me. So I will answer when I'm good and ready. But some people think that you should answer immediately. And I can appreciate why they might think that, but I don't see any reason to. If it's an emergency or if it's seriously urgent, you do not text. You call someone and you make the urgency clear. What about you, Maria? Do you have a similar philosophy? Or are you a text demon?