New Rules on Texting

What’s Your Texting Etiquette?
We recently saw an article on texting etiquette in the Washington Post by Lizzie Post, Emily Post’s great-great granddaughter. The Post women are the undisputed queens of all things etiquette – so, of course, we had to examine our texting etiquette and see if we agree with their rules. How about you – do you agree?

RULE 1: Think of a group text like a dinner party - Don’t text to a group without introducing everyone; don’t invite everyone to an event that may put someone in an awkward position; and don’t get into a hot back-and-forth with one participant in front of the other texters. Just as at a dinner party or any group activity, leave the room and discuss an issue in private with another person. It’s awkward to air your grievances in front of everyone. But if you are aspiring to be on one of the Housewives shows and love involving people in your drama – go at it. But know that we and Ms. Post would not approve. Don’t want to be involved in your drama – we have enough of our own.

RULE 2: Capital letters and punctuation – that ship has sailed - This writing style has fallen by the wayside while texting. However, we are old school and sticklers about complete sentences – even while texting. Would never want to mistake “Let’s eat, Grandma” with “Let’s eat Grandma”!!

RULE 3: Responses aren’t mandatory, but it is nice - Texting has really increased in the last few years and sometimes texts can get buried in a minute, hour or day when getting so many from different sender. How do you end a texting conversation without an abrupt silence? We hate to be left hanging – so a quick ‘thumbs up’ or liking the last text is always the way to go for us.

RULE 4: No Scary Mysteries - The “hey can we talk” or “do you have a minute” leaves us wondering what we did and unprepared for a conversation that sounds like it’s going to be dead serious. Hate it – give a clue to what you want to discuss. Should we find a private place when we call you, sit down, pull over, etc – don’t make us guess.

RULE 5: It’s okay to get serious - So, it’s still definitely NOT OK to break up with someone or tell them that a loved one died over text. But Lizzie suggests that you can still have serious discussions over text – but getting the tone right is key. Call us immature, but we agree that if we were teenagers we would take the easy way out and break up with someone over text. Ouch.

RULE 6: Workplace texting boundaries – There should be an established, agreed upon rule on how you communicate with colleagues and bosses, and also boundaries on which hours of the day can you answer texts in each workplace. We say, ‘yes, yes, yes and yes.’

RULE 7: Don’t text during important real-world moments – Put your phone away when it counts – meals, movies, performances and conversations with anyone you value. We agree 100% and then some – but one of us has a much harder time of this than the other. One of these days we are going to have a contest to see who can go longer without their phone. You should probably not put your money on anyone who’s name rhymes with BANANA. Just sayin’…..