Have you ever sat in a room where every single person is staring at their phone screen, preoccupied by the world of technology? The room is silent. This silence is not on purpose but is rather a result of the lack of conversation. Everyone in that room is too focused on the texts that are on their phone screen, to simply look up at talk to each other. What is the point of them all being together, when they don’t even speak to each other? The answer is that there is no point. This sounds silly and impractical, but this situation happens all of the time. With the recent technology that allows us to send messages to others many miles away in just seconds, we obviously use this to our advantage. This way of communication, called texting, has taken emphasis off of the importance of human interaction, and has glorified interaction by cyber means.
Although texting was created to enable quicker and easier terms of communicating, it has a rather damaging effect on real interaction-face to face- where as within a text message, the emotion and purpose behind what is trying to be said can be misinterpreted. We are slowly lacking the ability and “skill” of human interaction and because of the way texting is valued today, it is hard to see the various disadvantages of it. Consequently, if you look up from your phone screen for even a short while, you will surely see that this is not the most beneficial type of communication to ourselves and society.
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The advantages of text messaging are simply outnumbered by the disadvantages of it. It is a problem that a few clicks on a phone screen means more than oral conversations to the majority of our society. Starting with the teenage generation today, people are finding it more and more difficult to speak and carry out conversations. As human beings, we should find it comfortable and normal to speak to other human beings, but the invention of texting has prohibited our natural ability to do so.
According to this article, texting hinders all types of communication including, written, face-to-face, and surface level. It also causes problems with social boundaries and worsens our impatience and need for instant gratification. It states that texting takes away from building social confidence skills and the need for meaningful conversations. It also says that we get so used to writing in “slang”, that it may start to appear in our formal writing. Lastly, the article explains that we we become impatient with texting and break social boundaries. Since texting is such a fast paced thing, we expect an instant answer like we would get with a phone call. This causes us to text people when a phone call would not be appropriate and become upset when we don’t get an instant reply back.
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Imagine watching a movie where all of the characters sit in one room, not speaking to each other, texting on their phones. This would by far be the most boring, and unnecessary movie of all time. The entire time you would be thinking, “Why don’t they put down their phones and talk to each other?” So why don’t we? Why do we feel the need to be having conversations with people miles away, when there is someone sitting right next to you, across from you, and diagonally from you? Movies need interaction and variation, just like we do.
Although there may not be an immediate solution to this problem, I do encourage that we slowly put down our phones and face real life, and what real life interaction and communication consists of. If we do, we will surely see an increase in our abilities to connect with others and it will leave less room for misinterpretation. If we do not, advancing technology will lead us to further bury ourselves in unrealistic means of communication. This causes us to lose sight of the importance of human relationships, and aid us in letting reality zoom by, because we were too focused on a tiny screen in front of us. If this seems like a scary truth and future, then ask yourself; Why don’t we put down our phones and talk to each other?
This is a very interesting topic and post. I feel like texting has just made the world we live in a lot different. I just feel that it effects the way people communicate without texting. Everybody feels the need to text instead of calling someone or texting someone. One thing I do not like about texting and emails is that they have no emotion behind them, you can not convey feelings or emotion behind a screen. I feel like conversation is very powerful and should be the main form of communication rather then texting or emails. Check this out about how bad texting is http://thoughtcatalog.com/alexia-lafata/2014/01/10-reasons-why-texting-is-awful-for-society-and-ruining-it-too/
I’m really glad someone wrote about this topic. I feel that texting has ruined the way we develop relationships as a generation. I personally think that my friendships and relationships have felt the negative results of texting. I agree that it is a fast convenient form of communication, but it has no personal depth or connection to it. There is no good way of conveying emotion when it comes to texting. I believe that relationships that have been built on texting, will inevitably fall apart due to the lack of interpersonal connection.
I agree with you that texting is a huge societal issue. Phones can be society’s biggest enemy. When ever someone feels uncomfortable in a situation they could just go on their phone and their anxiety goes down. They feel less inclined and less forced to interact. You hit it right on the head, that texting will negatively affect people in so many ways. Meaningful conversations are hard to come by with texting, which is not good at all. Do we really want to live in a society where we don’t connect with people and communicate effectively with people? We need to combat this problem by spending less time on our phones and more time having face to face communication.
When we were all in middle school, texting and cell phones have not really developed for us yet. My friends and I would call each other on our home phones, and plan “play dates”. Or, I would ride my bike to their houses and just knock on the door. Today, middle schoolers seem to all have some sort of cell phone or communication device. Society has drifted away from the GameBoy, Club Penguin, and Tamagotchis. This NY Times article talks about cell phone use in children. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/technology/personaltech/whats-the-right-age-to-give-a-child-a-smartphone.html?_r=0
I really love meeting new people and value the power of conversation. I appreciate this blog and totally agree with many of your points because so many people are too consumed in their devices, that they miss enjoying the present moment they are in. I do believe that cell phones are a great invention because they provide us with some security and safety. If I was out and needed help- it is only a few buttons away. Therefore I don’t think cell phones are necessarily a bad thing, but they should be used more carefully.
Justine,
Your article about texting really spoke to me. Lately, whether I’m sitting in a class a few minutes early, walking around campus, or people watching at the HUB, I notice that almost every single person is on their phone. You mentioned this in your blog, saying silence has taken over our interactions, pretty much because we have no interaction at all anymore. Sitting in Spanish one day, my partner randomly started talking about how he liked having an assigned person to talk to because as soon as we leave the classroom everyone becomes consumed by their phones. My roommate also mentioned how her dad and uncle didn’t understand why so many people walked to class with headphones in – do you realize how much you actually miss by doing this? My friend went to class the next day without listening to music and she said she had never heard so many different conversations or been aware of the actions of some of the people around her. As we know from Andrew, cell phones are a distraction. He is purposely going to give us extra credit to give our phones to the TAs so that he knows we will be paying attention. Ever since realizing this stuff, I’ve tried my best to remain off my phone. I’ve benefitted by becoming more involved in the environment and not depending on my phone so much, but of course it’ll be even better if other people started doing the same. I’ve seen this really great video on Facebook and YouTube that relates to your idea of “facing real life.” It’s ironic, yes, since it’s a video on social media telling you how bad social media and technology is, but when you really think about it, it’s pretty funny because there’s really no other way of getting the message out to people.
I couldn’t agree more with what you wrote in this article. Every time I go out to dinner to eat somewhere there’s at least one full table of people staring aimlessly at their phones. Not only are people less social when they are on their phones but they do not pay any attention to their surroundings. People are so attached to their phones. The number of people on their phones while driving is alarming. A recent study (source below) shows that more teens die in accidents from texting than they do from drunk driving.
http://safety.trw.com/texting-while-driving-now-leading-cause-of-us-teen-deaths/0710/