I have a few folks who text me rather than call me. I think texting is one step closer to an actual human conversation than email is, for most people, without actually having to engage in that icky real interaction (yeh, I know it's also a good way to send info when the recipient is not in a position to talk.). There are texting apps you can use to send and receive texts with someone who's on their phone while you are on your computer. Or you can Send Texts Only (but not receive them) from your computer without installing a special app by using your existing email. I showed a couple of women at church how to do this so that could "blast out" texts of event notifications to a whole group of cell phones by sending a single email to a single Email Contact Group. You just need to know the recipient's cell phone# (you likely have this) and their cell carrier (you can ask them, or use one of the free websites to look up their numbers for this data.) Here are the email addresses to use for the main cell carriers out there: AT&T: [number]@txt.att.net Sprint: [number]@messaging.sprintpcs.com or [number]@pm.sprint.com T-Mobile: [number]@tmomail.net Verizon: [number]@vtext.com Boost Mobile: [number]@myboostmobile.com Cricket: [number]@sms.mycricket.com Metro PCS: [number]@mymetropcs.com Tracfone: [number]@mmst5.tracfone.com U.S. Cellular: [number]@email.uscc.net Virgin Mobile: [number]@vmobl.com So you can set up a separate contact in your email Contacts List for each friends' cell number "email address," then create Email Groups if you wish, and blast out a single text message to any number of cell phone recipients from your computer. Of course, you can send a text to multiple recipients from your phone, but you need to add them one at a time. For some folks who are in regular contact with a fized group of people (like my church friends), doing it via Email Groups ad typing the message on their computers is convenient. Again, this is Send Only. You cannot receive replies on your computer this way. For that, you need to install an App.
It's telling you that 12345 is the recipient of your text, so you're sending the message ABCDE to recipient 12345. See here? The TO: section is WHO you're sending the message to. The body of the message, what you want to say, is typed into the little bar with the blue arrow, and then you hit that arrow to send the message.
Dear Ronni, The ABCDE and 12345 are MY examples of the sending data and the recipient's location. Nobody gave me these examples. When I said I'm not interested in sending Text Messages, that means I need no instructional examples. Also, I don't own a Cellular Telephone and don't want one of those either! But thanks for going to all the trouble anyway! Hal (At my favorite type of Keyboard)
We do understand that, @Hal Pollner , and have all seen similar commercials as you were describing. The basic concept of texting is similar to that of email, the difference being that to send an electronic message with one, you need an email address to send the message to, and with the other, you just need a phone number, or one of those special number codes like you described. Suppose you wanted to contact a friend/relative (who lived in another state) about something important. You can send them an email, and if they are at their computer, they will receive the email immediately, just the same as if you called them on the phone. But suppose that they had gone somewhere for the weekend, and returned late on Sunday night, they might not even see your email or voice message on the phone until some time on Monday. Now, if you both had cell phones, then you could send a text message to them, and they would receive the message immediately, regardless of where they were, because they would have the equivalent of both a phone and a computer, along with them. This is probably one of the main reasons that people like to use texting, as opposed to sending an email to someone you need to contact immediately.
Yvonne...I understand what you have so carefully explained to me, but I have managed to live 84 years without encountering any difficulties in communications with just a simple twisted-pair, Land Line Telephone circuit! Yowzah! RE-ELECT THE PRESIDENT!
I was in NO way suggesting that you should change anything, @Hal Pollner . You were quite clear with the opening post that you had no intention of ever wanting to use texting, which is probably a good thing. I was only attempting to politely answer your question about how texting is done, and why people prefer it .
Since I am profoundly deaf I text every day on my I Phone in addition to Captioned Phoning which is SPEECH TO TEXT.
Texting is also an elegant way to contact a person without disturbing them too much. Just last night a younger couple living upstairs had decided to cook a meal at 10pm and discovered they had run out of onions. So rather than calling me or knocking on my door so late they launched a test balloon by sending me a text message to find out if I was still up so that I could help them. If I hadn't noticed the message or had been asleep, no harm would have been done. But I did notice it because I was at home and my smartphone was lying next to me. So I went up and gave them the onions. Now I expected some cake in return (kidding ) and got this. Prosecco, Onions, Sweets, and two meatballs which they needed the onions for. Nice neighbors.