We asked, you told us: You still send SMS/text messages to your contacts

WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and more — there is no dearth of good messaging and chat apps out there. These online communication platforms offer texting, voice calls, video calls, and many other features. One would think that the traditional SMS/text messaging method would not be as popular, with instant messaging apps accumulating millions of users worldwide.

So we conducted a poll on Android Authority asking our readers if they still send SMS/text messages from their phones. Everyone still receives SMSes for things like transactions and marketing promotions, but do people willingly use the service to contact their loved ones? Here’s how our readers voted and what they had to say.

Do you still send SMS/text messages to loved ones?

Results

Our SMS poll got a total of 2,226 votes and the results were surprisingly one-sided. Most of our readers who voted in the survey, 72.3% to be exact, said that they still send SMS/text messages to their loved ones.

Meanwhile, 27.7% of the respondents voted to say they don’t send SMS messages anymore.

There were some interesting comments our readers had to make about the state of SMS/text messaging and what they think about it. Read on and see if you agree with them.

Your Comments

Jaden Lock: I stopped using RCS because with google messages, I don’t receive a lot of messages so back to SMS for now.

Eric Pearson: If Apple would join the RCS train as a minimum standard all phones would drop SMS unless it’s a dumbphone.

Andrew: I only use SMS/Text. That is the standard still. I use it with my business also. At this point, most of the other android phones in my family are using Chat/RCS and it is wonderful. Now I just have to deal with silly iMessage and its lack of playing nice with others.

Loop Sandoval: On T-Mobile, you get RCS in the default SMS app. (S21U). I tried Google messages. Dropped it because of the unreliability and lack of features.

Stefan M.: Yes, SMS is way more reliable than IM. Also, I do not have to worry about data plans and internet signal strength. You can send SMS always, but you can’t always get a signal for IM. That is why I use SMS always.

DynamikD: SMS is always more convenient than IM. Now granted, I love the features that come with instant messaging applications but SMS will always be needed.

Alistair Parsons: I do agree SMS will always be needed, I use both and would never be able to use just one system. I often send SMS more frequently than otp, just that SMS cant be used exclusively.

Painfully_Candid: This may shock you, but in the US, cell signals are significantly more reliable and AVAILABLE than Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi — especially free/public access — is almost non-existent where I live. I quite literally have to be at home or eating at a very small number of restaurants to get Wi-Fi. And, as others pointed out, SMS is pretty much the last bit of your cell service to go as the signal weakens. The bottom line for me is that I can ALWAYS reach my contacts via SMS. I can SOMETIMES reach them through the umpteen thousand IM apps out there, as long as I can figure out which one(s) they’re using. SMS JUST WORKS.

Panino: Well, here in Europe, nobody uses SMS. Everybody has WhatsApp.

Anthorama: It’s been years since I did not receive a single SMS. Everything is WhatsApp

Martin Pollard: SMS all the way here. Virtually every one of my friends and family and business contacts can and does use SMS; by contrast, almost nobody uses WhatsApp. Also, as many here have pointed out, if I don’t have mobile data or Wi-Fi but still have a cell phone signal, I still have access to SMS, whereas I’d be SOL if I relied on WhatsApp or other internet-required apps.

Shizuma: Yup, SMS is ubiquitous, if someone has a phone they can get SMS, IM on the other hand requires specific apps and accounts, and the apps are data scraping privacy-violating apps which I won’t install on my phone.

pleasegetreal: If you live in the US and only communicate with other people who are in the US, then SMS is fine. If you live in a smaller country and chat with people outside that country, SMS can be nonsensically exorbitant. Everybody I know in Europe uses WhatsApp. Try carrying on an SMS conversation between LA and London. There’s just no point in paying cross-border SMS fees.