A few days ago someone said they had sent me a message. I checked my text messaging apps and there was nothing there. I also checked my email and, again, nothing. Finally, I called her up to ask how she had sent it and she had to think about it for a minute. “I used the messaging app,” she told me. And then I asked, “which messaging app?” Turns out she sent it by Facebook Messenger, which is one of many messaging apps I have on my phone.
This issue came up in the car the other day when my wife Patti and I were driving to someone’s house. She said that the address was on her phone and then took several minutes checking through multiple apps until she finally found the one with the message containing the address.With a few exceptions, I try to avoid proprietary messaging services.
There are occasions when I use proprietary apps. If it’s highly confidential, I might use an encrypted app like WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. But most of my communications aren’t that confidential so texting and email and adequate. I sometimes use Facebook Messenger if I know how to find the person on Facebook but don’t have other contact information, but I usually ask them to respond by email because I often forget to look at incoming Facebook messages.