Why Text is a Crappy Form of Communication

Our generation has grown up with and become completely accustomed to this rise of digital communication. We praise its availability everyday, citing common advantages such as "it's faster for me to text than to call them" and "I don't really feel like talking to this person, I'll just IM them". These things are what make digital communication so convenient, and sure, it's easy. You can send people mass e-mails or texts to let them know about that meeting tomorrow night, and it will all be done in just a few seconds.

Unfortunately, there are obvious disadvantages, and these disadvantages stem from its misuse. People these days have become accustomed to using it in place of face-to-face contact.Teenagers are texting constantly, and most of the time spent on the computer involves an instant messaging program open in the background. What people don't realize is that these faceless forms of communication lack the ability to convey emotion, and do nothing to further relationships and more often than not cause problems due to misunderstandings.

Let's start with the bare facts here. One study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication. It seems that the lifeblood of communication is completely non-verbal, which includes things like body language and tone of voice. Text lacks all those things, which is why so many things are misunderstood in e-mails.

In fact, another study showed that nearly 40 percent of what is written in e-mail is misunderstood. Imagine a situation where you meet someone online and keep in contact completely through e-mail. If you were to meet this person face-to-face, would you even be compatible? If 40 percent of your messages were misunderstood, do you even know this person? Also, if 93 percent of communication is nonverbal, would you even know HOW to talk to this person?

I have obviously done my share of instant messaging and texting, so I understand these negative effects first-hand. I found that even after having several personal conversations with people online, it did nothing to further my relationship with these people in real-life. The words in the online conversation faded as soon as the IM window was closed, and all meaning, if any, was gone. I also had a case of keeping in contact with someone mainly through texting. I found that in person, this person rarely even bothered talking to me and when they did, it was awkward and indicated an obvious incompatibility for friendship. This seemed to indicate for me that any and all texting relationships were meaningless, and that the only way I could really get to know someone was through real-life contact.

Most importantly, there's the humor aspect of communication. More than anything else, humor is conveyed mainly through tone of voice, facial cues, and timing. Now, most of our humor consists of sarcasm, right? Well, "A recent study by Profs. Justin Kruger of New York University and Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago focused on how well sarcasm is detected in electronic messages. Their conclusion: Not only do e-mail senders overestimate their ability to communicate feelings, but e-mail recipients also overestimate their ability to correctly decode those feelings." The study explained that the main reason this problem persists is because people are ego-centric; people assume that others will interpret their words the same way they do. They "overestimate their ability to correctly decode those feelings." The thing is, people often don't interpret your words the same way you do, causing all sorts of problems.

I cannot even recall the number of times I've experienced, heard of, and witnessed sarcastic comments go wrong online. Sarcasm is such a common part of our daily conversations, but it is impossible to detect through written text. People often do not realize this, and incorporate sarcasm into their text conversations anyway. Someone on the receiving end of the joke will misinterpret the sarcasm as being serious, and get offended. Arguments ensue. Misunderstandings like this are so commonplace and almost unavoidable, which is why texting and e-mailing is such a bad medium for conversation.

Don't get me wrong; there is nothing inherently wrong with texting or e-mailing. Texting is an excellent tool for exchanging small bits of information at relative ease. The same goes for e-mailing. As for instant messaging, it allows people to kill time by 'chatting' with each other. The thing about all this is, that's all it really is: exchanging stone-cold information. Like I said earlier, you're not really connecting with this person through your AIM chats; you're just trading information that you may or may not even understand. Don't feel bad, its not your fault. Getting to know a person is based around your learning of their emotional reactions, which is something you can only detect through nonverbal means and something text cannot adequately do. People must learn to understand the limits of this new technology, and find what it can and cannot do.