Reasons why texting is both bad and good.
1. Texts can be easily misunderstood. Someone can be convinced that the person they are texting is mad at them, impatient or sad, when they may not be at all or they can be confused by some misplaced or misspelled words, but chose not to ask.
2. Texts don't always go through. Unlike with a phone conversation, you can't tell if your text for sure made it to the person you sent it to. I have gotten many texts lost in the sending process, and I was worried that something was wrong or that a friend was mad at me because they weren't answering, and when I asked them about it, they said they had never received my text.
3. Eye contact, tone, and verbally spoken expressions add so much to interactions and without any of these elements, not only is texting easily misunderstood, but it is less meaningful then when you can see or hear the person you are talking to.
4. People are in general, bolder, more confident and sometimes thoughtless with texting than they are when in person or on the phone with someone because you can't see or hear the person and for this reason it is also much easier to talk about certain things on a text. This can be an advantage but more often it can be a negative because these texts can often hint or say too much or give the receivers the wrong idea.
However, with all these negatives, texting has several positives.
1. It is a handy way to communicate and it's fun.
2. It can be easily done in many places where talking on the phone or emailing may not be convenient or appropriate such as in a crowded store or in the few minutes before class starts.
3. You can refer back to a text if you forgot what someone said, which you cannot do on the phone.
4. It gives you time to think about your answer, because most people do not expect an immediate answer to their texts, as people do if you are talking with them on the phone.
Texting is a form of communication that I used a lot and that I often enjoy and am grateful for. I would nearly always choose face to fact interactions with loved ones but when they live far away or are unable to be with me or talk on the phone, I am grateful for texting so that I can keep in touch with them. However, as Sarah Swafford discusses in her talks about Emotional Virtue, we need to be on guard with texting to be sure that we explain ourselves clearly, because without tone, body language or expressions, there is an alarming amount of room for misinterpretation in a text. Also, in an angry moment a person can send someone else a text that can come across much harsher than it would probably have been in person. It is far too easy to forgot that there is a sensitive, feeling human on the other end of that text. It is too easy to not have appropriate empathy or sensitivity when texting because you can't see or hear the person you are talking to. I have gotten many texts in the past that completely shook my world and made me feel like I was sinking into darkness and often the messages that these horrible texts conveyed, would have been much softened and more realistic had they been in person and they could've seen how much it upset me, or seen if I was taking it the wrong way. Texting is a great invention but we should be on guard to not let it become a pitfall, to not become addicted to it, and to not let our life fall apart because of a text which we may be misinterpreting.
