How many text messages, instant messages and emails did you receive today?
I am willing to bet that the answer to that question for many of us, including myself, is well over fifteen or twenty.
We talk about everything in text nowadays. From our daily schedules to the intimate details of our lives.
Imagine for a moment if you can, that for one day you were unable to text, call, instant message or email.
The only way you could communicate with another person would be via face to face conversation.
This means that if you wanted to communicate a message to someone, you would have to look them in eyes and say what you wanted to say.
How would your day change? Who would you speak with? Who would you avoid? Who would you be unable to contact? What would you say? What would refrain from saying?
Texting, instant messaging and email are commonly thought to have made people more and more reachable and connected, but I think they may be doing the exact opposite. Text messaging often increases conflict and decreases face-to-face conversational skills.
Sitting safely behind a computer or phone screen often gives us a false sense of courage and allows for at least some level of anonymity at all times.
Conflicts and arguments easily escalate to a more serious level when they take place over text or instant message because we do not have to come in direct contact with the person we are communicating with. We’re meaner, angrier and less inhibited.
We see the receiver of our message as more of another phone or computer and less as another human being.
Because text, instant message and email messages lack certain crucial parts of the communication process, mainly nonverbal cues, we are forced to fill in those communication gaps on our own.
Text messages lack context, emotion, diction and tone.
Therefore, we may read and comprehend messages just fine, but we are missing vital pieces of the message even if we think we have clear idea of what the person is trying say.
Unfortunately, more often than not, this leads to a great deal of assumption and misinterpreted information and meaning on the part of the receiver.
In addition to this, I fear that people of my generation are losing their face to face communication skills all together. The only way to learn how to properly and comfortably interact with another person is to practice.
As a text messaging and emailing culture and generation, we really aren’t forced to interact with others face to face as often as need to be.
As a result, we shy away from face-to-face conversations because we are unsure of how to deal with them. I have several peers who struggle to write and speak in formal manner or avoid those kinds of communication as much as possible.
Texting is promoting this decrease in communicative abilities.
In these ways, something that is meant to keep you connected is actually driving a giant wedge between you and everyone else.
Texting promotes confrontational communication and suppresses actual, conversational skills and more accurate understandings of the messages being transmitted.
It might take a while to develop these face to face communication skills, and it certainly won’t be as fast as a text message, but the benefits would be worth the wait.
In the end, if we texted a little less and talked a little more I strongly believe that we would generally be in a better place in terms of communication.
I think there is a good possibility we would have a more accurate understanding of ourselves as communicators and about everyone else simply as human beings.
Bridget Goedke
Viewpoints Editor