ZOMG! ur txt is 2 l8!

I seem to remember my mother telling me it is rude to call people before 9 AM and after 9 PM. It seems to me that most civilized folk follow some similar rules although the times may be adjusted a bit. (An exception is college when everyone has crazy schedules and late night calls, even on weekdays, were not unexpected.)

Now, I don’t believe that people aren’t up before 9 AM or go to bed at 9 PM. That's definitely not my schedule. However, before 9 AM people are often busy getting their day started, particularly during the work week. After 9 PM, people are usually winding down for bed (on weekdays) or already busy (on weekends). Of course, there are exceptions if you know for sure someone is available. They may be even expecting the call. (“I can’t call until 10 tonight, is that okay?”) But, if I don’t know I try to stick to the rule unless the call is for something really important. Like I said, it seems that most people do the same.

But text messages seem to be different.

Yes, a text message is less of an interruption than a phone call, but it’s still an interruption. If the phone ringer is active, it will still make a sound. The receiver is still likely to look at the message to see what it is whether she was awakened from sleep or is rushing to get ready for work.

Last night, my husband and I finally made it to bed early. All the rest of the week, despite intentions otherwise, we have ended up staying up late, leaving us both functioning as walking zombies. But last night we finally go to bed early. Until…

There was a beep. This is how soundly asleep we both were: at first we were so out of it that we couldn’t figure out what the sound was. After a while I decided it was my husband’s phone. He decided it was mine. He was right. (Sorry, sweetie.)

I got up and got my phone. The text message was, of course, of no particular importance, but the damage had been done. I couldn’t fall asleep again for over an hour. My husband ended up getting up because he couldn’t sleep.

Perhaps I was asking for this. If I didn’t want to be disturbed I shouldn’t leave my ringer on, right? The problem is, I like to have the ringer on at night because of those times when there is truly something important. Sure, those messages usually come as actually phone calls and not texts, but on my phone turning the ringer on and off applies to everything. (One exception is Twitter, which has very good DND options for phones.) To only turn off text messages I would have to change the text messages settings each night and change them back in the morning. It’s easier to be annoyed.

Some text messages are random thoughts that people want to share at that time. I think the spontaneity of the content prevents people from thinking about whether this is an appropriate time to share. But I wish people would stop to think about that for a moment. At least before hitting "send" to me.

If you want to let me know something and it is not between 9 AM and 9 PM, unless it’s urgent, send me an email. You can do that from your phone. You don’t even need a “smart phone” or anything. Just type my email where you would normally put my phone number in the text message. That way, I can get your message and respond at a time when you aren’t waking me up or jarring my precisely timed morning routine. Oh, your message won’t be meaningful a few hours later? It’s just not that important? Precisely.