When you text a person, you’re not talking to that person, you’re talking to their phone. Is it possible for a friendship or relationship to begin and grow without face-to-face, direct communication or by picking up the phone and having a personal conversation?
When you think of communication the first thing you think about is the power of expression; the ability to express a message simply by the tone of your voice or by the movement of your body. Recently a majority of the people I’ve come in contact with no longer have an appreciation for that personal connection that is developed between two people who are having a face-to-face conversation. It’s almost as if they are stuck in the digital world which reminds me of the film The Matrix. The characters were plugged into an alternate universe and here I find others are plugging into some sort of connection that is not entirely authentic and personal.
“Overall, many adults in the United States text more than three hours per day, according to research conducted by Rune Vejby and the Gravitate Research Group. Vejby recently released a book called Texting in Sick: How Smartphones, Texting, and Social Media Are Changing Our Relationships that covers the changes in communication, focusing on the ways texting has changed the way we communicate.” (Cheat Sheet)
Research has long supported the idea that strong social bonds strengthen people’s mental health.
Communicating is a skill set that is important for all. It allows us to express ourselves and connect with others daily. The artificial walls that texting creates make building a relationship/friendship harder. It’s no wonder why many relationships created solely via texting never blossom into more than back-and-forth messages. There are never personalities attached to the people behind the texts so the relationship/friendship never has any true impact which ultimately gives an illusion of being connected to the other person. Although we can share thoughts and desires by texting how can we really connect without hearing the tone of the other person’s voice or by reading the other person’s body language? While I do think texting serves a purpose it should not be used so extensively when first beginning to establish a personal and intimate relationship with someone.
As a society we’ve adapted to this newer form of communication. I am guilty of not being able to cultivate a solid relationship based on words expressed on a phone or within an email. Some people communicate better by using this method but texting all the time is impersonal and makes it harder to bond with someone.
“Texting is seductive because it’s so easy and requires almost no emotional involvement in the conversation. Tough conversations such as breaking up with a partner or giving someone bad news can be done and over with at the click of a button. We have a natural inclination towards evading anxiety. Texting provides the technical means for achieving just that,” Vejby says.
