What's your primary method of written communication?

[Joseph41]

Kind of struck me earlier today that the way we communicate fundamentally impacts the way we live, and the way we communicate is fundamentally impacted by what's available to us at any given time.

For example, thinking about the way I grew up:

* Written letters
* Email
* MSN Messenger
* (MySpace) - not for me personally, but for most of my friends
* Facebook wall posts
* Facebook Messenger
* Snapchat?

That's sort of the way my communication has developed over the years, I think. MSN was huge for ages, but now no longer exists. I have really fond memories of it, though.

Now, my main method is probably Messenger, but is probs becoming less so. I've listed a bunch of things in the poll - interested to see which ones you use with some regularity.

Note that the poll is asking just for which ones you use "regularly" (subjective, I guess) - not solely the most prominent, despite the title of the thread.

[Sine]

For my definition of "regularly" 
- Messenger

All the others are a lot more sporadic and way more individual dependent.
- Instagram
- Whatsapp

[Joseph41]

- Whatsapp

Forgot this! Added to poll.

[Aaron]

I suppose the main ones for me:

* Email
* SMS
* Facebook Messenger
* Discord

I use email heavily as part of my work. Facebook Messenger for personal communication with friends and Discord for gaming-related chat.

Growing up, MSN/Windows Live Messenger (with the Plus extension, of course.. for those groovy modifications to your name, chat windows etc lol) along with email.

SMS is extremely outdated, yet so many people still use it to communicate. With all of the free over-the-net apps you can communicate with these days, it's interesting that people are still willing to use SMS.... In saying that, I still use it to communicate with old-er friends/family It's probably a good thing we still rely on one thing that doesn't require a compulsory internet connection 

[napkin101]

Regular SMS and FB messenger for me.

[Joseph41]

I completely forgot about SMS lol. Rookie.

Probs because I never use it. But added to the poll!

[Calebark]

I use Messenger everyday. Snapchat is everyday, but it's less for conversations and more for 'look at my nephew'-esque spam. ATAR Notes messages are for AN buds without either of these. That's what I use primarily, although I use others sporadically.

I use e-mail for one particular friend, but that's a few emails every couple of months, so far from frequent.  Otherwise I only use email for other purposes.

I have Penpals in Sweden and Ukraine, so I write occasional letters there.

I also use Discord if I'm gaming with my mates, but that's pretty rare if anyone's curious: Civ V, Terraria, Town of Salem

I was hoping phone calls would be an option so I could watch with glee as it remains at zero

[Aaron]

I was hoping phone calls would be an option so I could watch with glee as it remains at zero

Surely there'd be that one person who misreads and votes it. There's always one.

no, it's not me.. although it took me a minute to figure out you weren't serious. *sigh*. I need coffee

[PhoenixxFire]

I mostly use messenger. The others are sort of person dependant. My brother has a phone just for texting my mum so hardly any phone credit and no data so we use insta - we used to message each other on Snapchat but apparently that’s not a thing anymore (he’s 12 lol)

I SMS some of my friends who don’t have data but not all that much.

I don’t really use Snapchat because I hate taking photos of myself haha. Sometimes I use it to message one friend and one of my other brothers but I’ve mostly still got it so I can watch the AN stories

[K888]

When I was growing up it was definitely MSN Messenger, but now I mainly use Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and SMS.

Depends what the purpose of the message is, I guess. Is it just casual chatting? If so, I probably just use snapchat or messenger. If I'm organising something, talking to family or telling someone when I'm gonna be home or something I usually text

[Mada438]

I feel like I'm in a minority with this
I love actually CALLING people with my phone. I really dislike texting as a form of communication, because the meaning can always get lost, they can be misinterpreted and people speak differently over text as opposed to using their own voice and over text isn't as authentic. So i enjoy phone calls.

Also, i like writing letters. If i have something super long to say to someone that i feel is still better written down then i use a letter. It seems more heartfelt and personal and shows you actually took the time to write it,

[EEEEEEP]

I feel like I'm in a minority with this
I love actually CALLING people with my phone. I really dislike texting as a form of communication, because the meaning can always get lost, they can be misinterpreted and people speak differently over text as opposed to using their own voice and over text isn't as authentic. So i enjoy phone calls.

Also, i like writing letters. If i have something super long to say to someone that i feel is still better written down then i use a letter. It seems more heartfelt and personal and shows you actually took the time to write it,

I thought I was too old school in  my thinking .

I love calling as well. Text can be authentic, but you don't hear the intonations of say (Excited vs sadness). Also, hearing someone laugh on the phone is so much better than "hahhaha " or  "ROFLMAO".

[Aaron]

Phone calls would be a great answer if this thread asked for methods of oral/voice communication.

--

Speaking of letters: I probably would prefer them too over a long messenger chat. The fact I have to scroll i mean significantly, not just like a tiny swipe to read is just annoying. First world problems, but my fingers are precious. 

[owidjaja]

Definitely emails for school (I used to be a notorious email-spammer. I think the longest email conversation I had with a teacher, which was for a science project, was around 130 emails exchanged between the two of us. I had to start a new email because once we reached 100 emails, G-mail kept stuffing up and lagging).

SMS/Whatsapp is used for family, though SMS is more for if I've arrived at the train station, or if I'm on the bus kinda thing, and Whatsapp is more for sharing pictures with my family or talking to family members overseas.

Facebook Messenger, I use for tutoring, since I have my tutors on Messenger. Unfortunately, even though I tried to avoid Facebook for as long as I can, it's so difficult to keep in touch with people without Facebook so I made a Facebook account and use Messenger :/

Snapchat is more for me posting sarcastic comments or a cat spam, but I have a Modern History and Society & Culture class group chat there too. Instagram, on the other hand, is more for 'aesthetic' photos but I don't post on my personal instagram often (but my studygram on the other hand ).

I'm shocked not a lot of people use Skype anymore- I generally use it for my volunteering. Since my volunteering requires a lot of collaboration, we tend to use Slack just to bounce off project ideas or article drafts and we do a lot of Skype calls just to touch base/verbally discuss ideas. The difficult thing about Skype meetings is that most of the research team lives in Europe so 6-8pm AEST is the best time to call (which is around 9am-12pm in the UK) but many people are off to work at that time.

I'm kinda sad that letter writing isn't as common these days (I really wanna use my cute letter set but we don't usually write letters anymore ). I remember writing postcards, especially when my dad had to go on business trips and I'd be excited to find a postcard from Singapore or LA in my mail box (probably because I used to think getting letters is pretty cool, but in reality, most of the letters are bills lol).
On a somewhat relevant note, does anyone use shorthand in their messages? (e.g. see u later, or ttyl etc.)

Personally, apart from some lol's, lmao's, haha's and cuz (for because), I tend to write in full sentences.

[Sine]

On a somewhat relevant note, does anyone use shorthand in their messages? (e.g. see u later, or ttyl etc.)

Personally, apart from some lol's, lmao's, haha's and cuz (for because), I tend to write in full sentences.

yeah same I "think" I don't use shorthand apart from "lol", "lmao" and stuff like that since I feel they are no longer shortened forms but words as themselves.