The Meeters, The Callers, and The Netters

Do you ever wonder why some people seem to be un-detachable from their cell phones, some must get connected to the internet very often if not most of the time, and others don’t get attached to either, but seem to be with people all the time?

Recently it dawned on me that people can be categorized into three groups according to their preferred means of communication and coordination with other people.

The first group consists of those who love meetings. Call them anytime of the day, or ask them what they do over the weekend, they are mostly with other people, be it at meetings that more than often are not in their offices, at this or that restaurants or cafes, or visiting this or that friends. For identification purpose, people who belong in this group are The Meeters.

The second group consists of those who prefer talking on the phone. You would never see them without their cell phones and if for one reason or another their cell phone died, they would get rather jittery. Some people within this group have more than one cell phone for the circumstances that should one died, the other would still function. And they know very well the price wars between different providers and have updated knowledge on what kind of packages are cheaper for making phone calls or text messages to which numbers and areas. We’ll call them The Callers.

The last group consists of those who get very anxious and even cranky if they don’t check their email every day. They are happiest when they can be connected to the high speed internet. They would be happy working away in front of computer screens, and they could sit for hours and hours without getting bored. They would go to a lot of extent to avoid meetings and calls and much rather use text messages, emails, or chats. Meet The Netters.

If you want to communicate and coordinate with the Netters, they would ask you to email them. And in turn, they would text or email you and would only call if you don’t respond to their text or email messages. Try The Callers, they would say: “Call me”, or they would call you up and try to solve things over the phone. The Meeters’ first response would obviously be: “Let’s meet” and you will have more meetings in longer time that you could possibly expect – at least for The Netters.

If you are dealing with The Meeters, don’t try to communicate with them through text messages, emails, or chats – especially if you have something urgent to discuss. At the very least you should call them and ask whether or not they have read your messages. In meetings, rather than giving them soft copies, give them hard copies. They need to see people and things to get the message through.

Along a continuum, The Meeters and The Netters are at the opposite ends, with The Callers in between the two. Meeters can be Callers, Callers can be Netters, some Meeters can be Netters, but most Netters are definitely not Meeters.

But then again, what do I know, I'm a Netter, I don't meet that many people to be able to categorize them all within these three narrow categories.