This is Steven Robbins.

Welcome to the get it done guys, quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Wow, this episode was supposed to be a simple roundup of chat apps, and instead it became a nightmare of unspeakable evil as you will soon learn, because I'll be speaking about it.

We'll still highlight chat apps,

but rather than discussing features, we'll learn what you might want to be concerned about

when choosing them. The things that I say in this episode can be found with citations at

get it done guy.com forward slash chat. Voice communication gave us protection. Only 15 years ago,

we talked by phone. We expected privacy and security. Wiretapping was expensive. It required a warrant. Recording without notice was

illegal. And laws protected us from the gross misuse of our communications. Our modern tools,

our chat apps, and they do what phones can't do. They break all of those expectations while promoting

misunderstanding at unprecedented levels. We call this progress. And with that progress in mind,

let's chat about chat apps. Know which apps that your contacts use. Chat may still be the most

popular use of the internet, but there are dozens and dozens of different chat apps, and different people use different apps. When you meet someone, record how they like to

communicate in their address book entry in your phone. When you want to communicate with them,

just look at their address book and go. There's no need to try a dozen in different chat apps

to find out which one they're on because you recorded it. Pretty much all the chat apps

let you send long text

messages, pictures, video clips, stickers, which are really just pictures, and audio clips. Most also

allow group chats, and any chat app that doesn't do these things is pathetic and probably not

worthy of mention. But each one has its own special features, and many have sinister shadow sides as well. Oh, boy.

Text messages, SMS, are the most basic chat app, and those are your cell company's text

messaging. It's called SMS because it stands for a short messaging service, and both Android

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