Sometimes, it feels like we are being ignored. It can feel that someone is ignoring us for no reason, and perhaps we may suspect ‘something’ is going on. It is particularly frustrating when realizing that in reality, there is nothing amiss on the other side. Excuses are timeless, and in the age of technology there is almost no excuse for a lack of communication,or there would not be, if not for the invention of the cell phone. We can now keep track of our relationships by the hour, by the minute, and review our past chat logs to see if someone really did promise one thing or another.Not surprisingly, this sort of fact checking doesn’t have any impact on the adage
‘being right is overrated.’
In a society where is it unusual to be disconnected from the world around us, it can be overwhelming to understand reasonable boundaries of communication and phoning etiquette. Gone are the exclusive days of face to face visits and closely monitored telephone calls (“I can only be on the phone a few more minutes; we’re expecting a call.”) as we now welcome the times in which it is more convenient to communicate with sentence fragments rather than conversation. The most confusing aspect of all of this is when to realize the appropriate level of communication and response in a healthy relationship.
How long do you wait to respond to a text message?
If one is unfamiliar with the popular ideas surrounding this question, it is safe to say they are relatively uninitiated into the concept of ‘playing it cool’ — by today’s standards. In most circles it is stated that one appears to be needy if they respond to a text the moment it is apparently received, the ideaology is that it displays that the reciever of the text is unimportant and has too much time, or is specifically waiting for the text to arrive, while waiting an indetereminte period of time, such as fifteen to twenty minutes, showcases that the reciver is actually a busy person, and had to find the time to respond to such a message. The other negative trait that is often discussed is over texting. The apparent rule of thumb is that there is a one to one ratio in most cases, and that both responses should be the same approximate length.
The thought behind these guidelines, that a person may be too needy and demanding if they were to send messages throughout the day while recieving no response, again a sign of neediness and unimportance, and that one who is too wordy isnt able to correctly communicate their ideas; that they are rambling.
One of greatest qualities of texting is that it allows communication that is generally declarative, such as directions,hours operations, and can provide answers to closed ended questions without an unnecessary amount of overcommunication. The frustration with the practice can be attributed to many different factors.
As a rule, a speaker must use some form of speech to communicate, for a face to face speaker, their voice is sufficient, while a text messager must use a device capable of recording their speech either by physical input or by voice recognition. At the current time, physical input is dominated for the most part by touchscreen phones, which have began the process of overtaking the seemingly outmoded QWERTY keypad and the archaic T9 system used in very early text enabled phones.
While typing is becoming commonplace, there is a learning curve associated with using any sort of typing device; button size,poor screen size, and lack of tactile function all contribute a seemingly difficult to newcomers, along with the standardization of certain misspellings and contraction commonly substituted in place of full length words. certain acronyms such as ‘brb’ or ‘lol’ seem cryptic or redundant to the uninitiated. One college professor, fed up with the abberviations appearing in student’s work, wrote in a syllabus that “students wishing, for some reason, to express a feeling of merriment are to avoid usage of acronyms and abbreviations that are becoming increasingly prevalent. In lieu of ‘lol’, if you are so inclined, simply write that in response to whatever jubilant occurence that you had laughed out loud.”
With all the changes in communication happening at such an accelerated pace,the elements of communication seem to be the same; the filters are quite different, and create new challenges in the age old process of spreading information. I have noticed a trend among my cohorts in which there is a preference for early pre-dating sorts of communications to tend towards texting or chatting via a messaging medium,such as Facebook. Personally, I feel that this sort of interaction is limited by the nature of that mode of exchange. Complex ideas are rarely exchanged through this medium, and consequently, the aforementioned misspellings and abbreviations further complicate such matters. When a speaker is given an unnecessary restriction, such as the amount of characters in a message — currently the standard is 250 for texts, there is a need to condense information and reduce the other aspects of the data; that is, it can be difficult to convey personality traits.
When exchanging ideas with irony, sarcasm, and satire it is extremely important the listener is aware of the cues that signal the true opinion of the speaker; due to the naturally reduction in verbiage imposed by the character limit, the cues are naturally reduced, and in some cases completely absent, leaving the listener to either accept a statement as the opinion of a speaker, or interrupt the flow of conversation by questioning the content. For reasons such as this, I would suggest that texting is perhaps best suited in a situation where both parties are already familiar with the mannerisms of each other, and in addition, the nature of the conversation would dictate that the exchange is consisting of relatively closed statements with concrete response.
While punctuation is normal and integral to most written forms of communication, I believe the natural confines of a text message actually imply a statement roughly the length of one to three sentences; the period,comma,and semi colon have a limited usefulness as they further decrease the available space for other pertinent verbage. A subject in a text can be implied by the speaker’s previous message, or even a separate yet identifiable exchange, and therefore does not necessitate the need for punctuation, as the intended audience is assumed to be an intimate and personal communication between two closely linked parties. In general the usage of punctuation is in response to the need for a large audience’s necessary understanding of separation of thoughts and concepts; in this scenario, with an absolute filter of speaker and listener, interrogatives, and declarations need not be used alongside a question mark or a period. In modern interpersonal communication it is not uncommon to see ineffective use of exclamatory symbols ; most often an instance where an exclamation mark, in multiples, is supposedly implied to increase the importance of a statement, such as “I had the best day ever! !!!!!”.
Though technology is quickly providing us with more modes of communication, perhaps it is worth considering the best mode of discourse, much like the facebook break up is frowned upon in lieu of a physical meeting.With the increasing popularity of video chat on mobile phones, perhaps there is more to learn about how people interact.