The mobile phone, with its ability to instantly dispatch messages, just seems to cultivate a most inefficient way of communicating. Inefficient because it entails a number of to-and-fro exchanges instead of just two (one from the sender, one back from the recipient).
Here’s an example.
A text arrives: “Are you free on Friday?”
Free for what, at what time, for how long, and where?
Drink tea or run through a PhD thesis?
Morning, afternoon, evening? Early morning, late morning, early afternoon, late afternoon, etc?
5 minutes or 5 hours?
Meet downtown or the other side of London?
I then have to send a text back, asking for these details.
The other party then has to text back giving me the details.
I then have to text back saying yes or no.
If the other person had included all the details in their first text, I’d just need to text back with yes or no. End of communication, one text each way, instead of back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Drives me mad.
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