As mentioned in the chapter 5 reading, sometimes we do not choose the best option for our communication needs. I, along with so many of my generation, am guilty of relying on text messaging as my primary source of communicating to others. Studies have shown that while our technology skills are increasing, our interpersonal skills are decreasing. Also with this decrease in interpersonal skills, goes our ability to judge what we should say orally and what we instead type frantically away on our cell phones.
Most college students (and many high school students too) know and are contributors of www.textsfromlastnight.com. Texts from Last Night is a website that was founded in February 2009 with the intent of posting anonymous texts and parts of conversations from the previous night. They are often funny, sometimes crude, but always amusing.
How Texts from Last Night relates to the reading is when you read some of the texts posted on the site, you know if they had just called each other instead of texting, things would have gone much much smoother. An example of this is:
“Im lying in the gutter can u come get me?”
“Where r u?”
“Under the stars!”
Person 1 clearly had no idea where they were and person 2 had no way to find person 1. If they had called each other they might have been able to put together a general location for person 1.
Sometimes texting is easier than calling someone, but you have to realize what is appropriate when the situation calls for it.
Becca,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you on this one. I remember when I first got a cell phone I wanted to text nonstop but I would rarely use it to call someone because I thought texting was so cool! But I also remember having many complicated conversations over texting that ended in misunderstandings. Looking back at it now there would have been no problem if I had just picked up the phone and called them. Texting is great for short snippets of information like "hey, I'm here" but I think that's about it.
Sophia
This is a good distinction that I wish more people would think about before starting conversations through texting. I think texting is ideal for short messages, but some things are better suited to a call. A longer text discussion is just a slower version of instant messaging for me, which I find frustrating (but I'm a slow texter). Why can't people just call?
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