Texting; a great technological advancement to keep in touch with people quickly, and effortlessly, and a great step back for the art of conversation.
No matter how old you are in this day and age, you know what texting is, even if you’re so young you can’t quite spell yet, or so old you lost your ability to see the screens clearly.
Everyone knows what it is, and almost everyone living in our country takes part in it.
While it was a great advancement, and definitely comes in handy for quick messages and keeping in touch with loved ones during busy times in our lives, it has also ruined many aspects of the conversational world.
When you first meet someone, you no longer get to know him or her through phone calls and meet-ups, you text day or night and attempt to get to know someone without hearing their voice or seeing their face.
Isn’t that the best thing about a conversation?
Hearing someone’s voice get excited when they talk about something, or even hearing it quiver when they’re nervous?
Seeing someone’s face light up when they talk about something they’re passionate about, or being able to comfort them when you realize their eyes have started to focus on the ground instead?
With texting, you’re left to judge, and sometimes misjudge, the tone and purpose of someone’s texts to you.
Was that sarcastic? Are they flirting? Was that meant to be a question?
Everything about conversation has changed and it's become increasingly more difficult to find people you can connect with and never lose conversational interest with.
Even if you do have long serious conversations over text, some of us have still lost the ability to care, or know how to, have a long conversation face to face because they’re not used to using those very important skills.
Being able to talk about your emotions in person, being interested in knowing more than what meets the surface; all of this has been taken away partially because of technological advances and the way that we’ve been accustomed to communicating.
We’re reliant on constant communication, but not so much verbal communication.
When we’re out to dinner, or at an event, our phones are always in hand.
We’re Snapchatting our lives instead of soaking it all in, we’re texting other people while we’re in the presence of loved ones instead of focusing on the conversation right in front of us. We’re consumed by technology and every app, or communication on our phones rather than the people and environments that we’re actually present to, and we’re forgetting how important it is to have a voice.
A voice that we can accurately, efficiently, and easily, use in the real world. Without present communication skills, we’re losing a piece of ourselves because we can’t express it correctly and we’re losing respect from people who know how important it is to be able to verbally interact logically with other humans face to face.
Everyone sees texting of different importance, so some people might not agree with all of this, but that’s just a whole other problem about texting itself. Some people think texting is a serious and validating form of communication, but the person they’re texting might think just the opposite.
Words, emotions, and intentions are misconstrued and you will commonly be left lingering around your phone waiting for someone to reply, who could very easily never do so.
Our generation is lucky to be able to take advantage of so many new technological advances, but the abuse of them is the problem we have.
If you think about it, communication is an art, and now it's a very uncommonly acquired talent to be able to take part in.
Always wanting constant gratification, constant communication, and constantly wanting more, has left us speechless.
