Texting – It’s Too Easy
Yesterday I wrote about new research which reveals some very interesting facts about text messaging among teens in the U.S.
All of this texting certainly raises serious concerns. Texting and driving, sexting, texting during class, the invasion of texting into academic work, and the complete destruction of the English language are certainly legitimate concerns (though that last one is an exaggeration in my opinion), but I am concerned about a couple of other issues. I wrote about one of those issues yesterday and I’d like to pick up with the other today.
It Impairs ~Some~ Social Skills
I don’t subscribe to the notion that all of our electronic communication makes us less social. To the contrary, I think much of it has increased our ability to communicate with each other.
My concern is that teens, because they are growing up with this technology available to them, may not learn other valuable social skills because of all the texting. While we are at it, let’s include Tweeting and Facebook updates, and even email.
I’ve noticed three trends that signal the problem:
- texting love messages
- breaking up, quitting, or firing via text
- emoticons
- teens prefer texting parents over calling
I’ll admit now that there is a positive side to numbers one and four. One could also argue that some of the problems I point out apply to other forms of communication which pre-date texting – like the folded notes we used to pass in high school, for example. Correct, but the issue – again – with texting is that it increases our ability to do something. Technology has a way of doing that. We use a technology to make a task easier, faster, or more convenient; thereby increasing all the negative associated with that task.
Let’s look at each one. These are not the problems. These are the signals that there is a problem.
Texting Love Messages
No doubt I see the positive side here. If texting can help a shy teenager strike up a conversation with someone he likes, that is fantastic. The problem begins, for me, when it becomes too easy to use texting and we don’t ever try to grow beyond that.
One writer puts it this way:
Personally, I find nothing interesting in the sms craze, except that it has boosted the confidence of some spineless fellows, who now find it easier to send love messages to girls they wouldn’t dare open their mouths to say the three little words. Campus VIBE Misuse of text messaging now borders on obsession
Learning to express your feeling verbally – over the phone and face to face – is an important part of growing up. If one shares his feelings only via texting, he is missing out on something. He is also depriving someone else of some very important things – not the least of which is the expectation of sincerity. Without the other signals present in verbal and face to face communication, one is left to wonder sometimes if the message was intended as a joke or something else.
Breaking Up (or quitting or firing) Via Text
I don’t know if firing is becoming a trend but I’ve read that it is starting to happen. Quitting via texting is starting to become more popular and I’m sure most of us have heard of someone using texting to break up with someone. This is just another example of using technology to avoid doing something difficult – something one must learn how to do.
It’s one thing to use an power tool to make a mundane task easier to accomplish. It’s another to apply the same logic to what, presumably, was an important interpersonal relationship between two human beings. Perhaps that is the problem – there was no real relationship there in the first place.
Using texting for one of these things is inexcusable. I am no expert at any of these situations – from either perspective 
– but I would have to guess that more than 90% of the time these things should be handled in person. The remaining 10% should be handled by telephone or some form of written communication. Texting – no way.
Starting a relationship with someone via texting may be okay – ending it is not.
Emoticons
Electronic communication is prone to misunderstanding and lacks the other signals present in verbal and face to face communication. This has led to the use of emoticons to make up for those signals. Unfortunately, it’s too easy.
If I were mad at you but I needed to communicate with you about something face to face, I’d need to work at treating you with respect, making my point clear, leaving our disagreement out of the conversation if it is not the point to our conversation, etc. If I were having that same conversation via text, I could type what I needed to type and use emoticons when necessary to “pretend” as if everything is okay.
Obviously, there is a place for emoticons. Remember, they are not the problem. The problem is that we use them so often in exactly the wrong way. It’s just too easy to make a sarcastic remark to someone and follow it with a to indicate that we are “only kidding.”
Teens Prefer Texting Parents Over Calling
As a parent I have to tell you – I prefer it too most of the time. I have two children. We don’t struggle with most of the things a lot of families do but I still find the parent-teenager relationship fascinating. When my son goes out somewhere I’d like to know what he is up to. As a good kid, he actually wants to keep me informed. He does not, however, want to sit amongst his friends and have an out-loud conversation with his dad. Can you blame him?
That is why I like it. I can text him and he will respond. I can ask him to text me when he gets somewhere and he will do it – most of the time. I can also usually ask as many questions as I want and he can answer in private. Same for my daughter.
But there is a down side – everything I’ve described above. Sometimes a phone conversation is necessary. There are other reasons teenagers prefer texting. When you text someone they can’t see or hear what is going on around you, they can’t tell if you’re drunk, they don’t even know it is really you. Many teens resort to texting as a way of keeping parents “off my back.” It’s more of the same – it makes my life easier so that must be better, right?
Something I read yesterday sums it all up really.
For Pam Zingeser, the big issue is not cost — it’s $30 a month for the family’s unlimited texting plan — but the effects of so much messaging. Pam wonders: What will this generation learn and what will they lose in the relentless stream of sentence fragments, abbreviations and emoticons? “Life’s issues are not always settled in sound bites,” Pam says. 6,473 Texts a Month, But at What Cost?