On Tuesday, February 22, Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times caught my eye with her article on texting. The article, called "'Friends' Without A Personal Touch", described the downfall of the up rise in technology. "Teenagers send and receive six to eight thousand texts a month and spend hours a day on Facebook". With the rise of technological communication came the fall of face-to-face communication. Kakutani writes, "Instead of real friends, we "friend" strangers on Facebook. Instead of talking on the phone (never mind face to face), we text and tweet".
I could not possibly agree more with this article. I see "kids" who are 5-6 years younger than me that have extremely poor communication skills. People become so dependent on the "safety" and comfort of communicating with their thumbs, that they forget the importance of genuine, in-person communication. Texting and tweeting give one the ability of control and openness without discomfort. I truly believe that if these outlets continue to expand (Facebook, Twitter, Smart phones, etc.); our generations to come with have zero face-to-face communication abilities.
This article also tied in with something we recently learned in Chapter 3 of "Language: the Social Mirror" by Elaine Chaika. On page 81, "Kinesics" is discussed. Kinesics is essentially the uses of style and body motion-- aka nonverbal communication. Kinesics, voice quality, and indexical meaning (voice quality, intonation, pitch, etc.) are completely lost through the beast of texting and Facebook. First hand, I have seen how a text message or a status post can be unbelievably misconstrued and misread. The way someone types "I luv u", or "I love you! <3" can be misinterpreted, so on and so forth. I have seen relationships struggle and friendships plunder. I have seen situations over-analyzed and words twisted simply because of a missing exclamation point! You don't even need to "get to know" someone anymore, you simply just have to look at their Facebook profile. Dating and friendships have become totally impersonal. Women have been known to "over-analyze", as it is. With the missing nonverbal aspect of texting, to the nonexistent pitch of tweeting-- these forms of communication are quick and easy, but are crippling us in the long-run.
Below is a funny video I found on how texting can be completely misinterpreted!
So fellow classmates I ask you, have texting and Tweeting taken over your life? More importantly, has something like the above video ever happened to you? I challenge you to give up these technologies for a week and see if it forces you to be more hands on (or should I say, "hands off") with your communication skills :)
Wow! This was a very interesting but very true post. I notice that my younger siblings lack a huge amount of face to face communication because I often view them posting things on facebook that they never mention or bring up to me or even our mother. When I was their age social networking wasn't as popular so I had to deal with the interaction of communicating with others face to face and that is why I never had a problem with strongly and effectively communicating in person. But in today's day and age smartphones and social networking has made it easier for people to express these "virual" emotions because they really don't have to deal with the in person reaction and true feelings and that is why person to person interactions will be more challenging.
ReplyDeleteTo go off of your video, I actually was in a very similar situation just recently where we both mis-understood each other's messages and I ended up getting upset because he didn't respond to my message in a way I thought he would. I figured he didn't care so I called him and he was so confused at how I took him as being inconsiderate and rude. Good video example!