Summer 2017 is in full swing, which means many of us students have returned home to work or spend time with the family over break. While this hiatus from hectic campus life and academic responsibilities is usually refreshing, if you're anything like me, you miss your college friends like crazy when you're gone.
Luckily for us, we live in the 21st century and have practically a billion forms of technology at our disposal to contact friends within seconds. Unluckily, many people are still inept at communicating properly, particularly through the most convenient method of contact: texting.
Text messaging and I have a love-hate relationship. I've noticed many aspects of texting (and individuals' texting styles) that honestly drive me crazy. Here are some profiles of various texters I've encountered that have caused me to lose faith in the medium from time to time (you'll probably recognize a few of them):
1. The person who uses too many emojis
Usually, this is the high-energy, perky individual who loves to express their emotions to the fullest extent. What better way to do this than through cute little emojis, right? Wrong. An excess of emojis just seems...I don't know, unnatural? I know that there are emojis to represent a large portion of objects, people, and situations that we encounter, but I don't want to spend an hour trying to decode your hieroglyph of a message. There's a reason ancient civilizations eventually upgraded their written speech...sheesh.
2. The emotionless texter
3. The brief texter
I get it, some people like to get straight to the point– they don't have time for exclamation points or a healthy amount of emojis when appropriate. Sometimes, though, it can be SO DIFFICULT for an anxiety ridden person like me to properly construe the tone of a message if these cues aren't available. I tend to assume either that the person is bored with me, or that they just generally don't want to talk to me. Or, alternatively, I get bored of carrying a conversation with a robot of a human– no matter how you slice it, the conversation isn't going to last very long. Side note: I'll also probably think you're secretly a serial killer.
4. The novelist
This person is probably the same as the unemotional
5. The hit and run texter
On the opposite spectrum are those who decide it's appropriate to send their entire life story to an individual via a single text. I appreciate when people trust to tell me important or long-winded things– in fact, I love it– but sometimes it's just better to pick up the phone and call. It's also a heck of a lot easier on the fingers– typing these things can be tedious as heck after a while.
This kind of texter bothers me the most. If a person starts a conversation with me or asks me how I'm doing, and I respond within 30 seconds, why does it take the initiator hours to reply? Theoretically, if that person had the time to shoot a text with the intention of having an open and immediate conversation, wouldn't they have their phone right next to them, ready to respond? Or did they send the first text and immediately toss their phone into an abyss filled chasm? It doesn't make sense to me. Also, why start a conversation if you're about to become busy or if you're in the middle of something that is obviously going to occupy your time? Save it for later if that's the case (and simultaneously save my sanity).
Don't get me wrong, I love texting. It's easy, quick, and super useful– but sometimes, these styles make it downright irritating. At the end of the day, you can always call me, beep me, if you want to reach me (although I'd prefer if you called).
