When thinking of modes of communication in today’s society, texting is probably the very first thing that comes to mind.
And rightfully so.
Texting is the quickest and most efficient way to communicate with your friends and family. It is an easy way to simply check in and do it in such a way where you do not have to have a full-blown, constant, back and forth conversation. While those are the many benefits, here is the main issue…
We should be having back and forth conversations and we just don’t!
Before texting was the go-to way to talk to your friends, people would actually talk on the phone and better yet, in person. It was not always so easy to hit a few buttons and press send. In all honesty, I wish talking on the phone was still the main way to communicate. Texting creates this literal barrier that negatively impacts how we talk to people.
My biggest issue with texting is that you cannot hear the tone of voice of the person you are talking to. This actually drives me up a wall, okay? I can internalize a message one way, but the person on the other end thinks of what they sent in a completely different way. A text can come off as mean to me, but the person was totally not being intentionally rude. I have this issue because I text in a very sarcastic manner, somewhat to the point where people think I am actually being rude over text. So, let me just throw it out there, if you heard my tone of voice over the phone, the conversation would be internalized very differently.
Another critique about texting is all the slang/shortcuts used. For example, “okay”, “ok”, and “k.” Do not tell me that receiving a text that says “k” is not a really scary thought. You automatically think, “this person is mad at me”, or “I did something wrong”. Like that should not be the case here, but it just is. There is such a difference by including a couple extra letters in a word or not, and I have no idea how this got to be such a concept. Okay, moving on…
I have this weird thing where I cannot respond too fast if the person who I am texting took a while to text me back. This sounds bizarre, but I know I am definitely not the only one who has done this. You don’t want to seem too eager, or like you're sitting around doing nothing. This honestly should not be a big deal.
The whole purpose of texting is to get a fast response! That is why you don’t call, right? I have gotten to a point where I just put my phone on do not disturb sometimes because the time it takes for people to reply really gets to me. Don’t ask me why because I don’t really know, it just does…we all have our things.
There is no way to get around texting, it is such a cultural norm and it is the main way we communicate in today’s society. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy texting in terms of it being an easy way to talk to my friends. With that said, I am all about the FaceTimes and the phone calls, or even catching up in person.
We have all of these modes of communication on our phones for a reason, so let’s actually utilize them! You would be surprised how much more effective a conversation is when you can actually hear the person.
