Texting at night

[JoieGirl7]

I've become so accustomed to texting being like emails or FB messaging that I didn't think when I returned a text to a friend at 1 am.

Today, I got the message:
"I promise not to text you before 9 in the morning if you promise not to text me after 1 am."

I'm sorry I disturbed her.  It occurred to me after seeing the time stamp on her text that maybe I shouldn't have. I was responding to a message she had sent me hours earlier but had only seen in that moment...  I think I thought that she had just sent it to me.

She could literally text me anytime of day or night.  It's never going to interrupt me because I control my notifications so that no one can disturb me if I don't want to be disturbed.  And apparently, because I forget to turn notifications back on I don't get these instant messages until hours later and then I just hit reply.  :/

So, how bad was this?

[MorgnsGrl]

I would say "not too bad." Just make a mental note to be cautious when texting her in the future. I personally shut off notifications when I go to bed, and if I forgot one night and someone texted me, I would figure it was my fault, not theirs. In general I try to have a policy not to text anyone after 10 pm-ish or before 8-ish unless I know they are a night owl or shut off their phones while they're sleeping.

[lakey]

I would simply apologize and let it go. Something like, "Oops, sorry, I wasn't thinking."

My phone makes a noise when I receive a text, and I keep the phone near my bed at night. So a text at 1 AM would wake me up. However, you didn't do anything terrible. What she said to you was pretty lighthearted.

[Winterlight]

I'd mark it under "Whoops," and do my level best not to do it again.

I started muting my phone at night because I had friends who habitually texted or called at 1 or 2am and it drove me up the wall that no matter how many times I told them not to, they still did it.

[Hmmmmm]

I do try to think of texting as calling and if I wouldn't call, I won't text before or after a certain time. But I have other friends who think of texting like email so they don't follow the same rules so I control my notifications.

But even I've had a brain blip and once woke up at 5am, realized I had a text from my housekeeper that I hadn't seen the night before and sent a response. When she responded back about 30 min later with a "wow, you do get up early" and felt bad and hoped I hadn't awoken her.

All that to say, just apologize with a "oops sorry, wasn't thinking" and let it go.

[SamiHami]

That happened to me a few times when texting became popular. It never occurred to me to say anything to the senders. I just realized that I need to be in control of my own device. Now I have it set on silent at night and there is no issue.

[Mommyoops]

I simply turn off notifications when I go to bed. If a friend asked me to refrain from sending messages after hours I would do my best to remember and honor that.

[Dazi]

That's why you can set your phone to silent.

[Mad Goat Woman]

The other thing you can do, if you have a smartphone is set up a "quiet time" period on your phone where all calls and text messages don't wake you up during that period.