Texting

We spent a lot of time in English 1213 discussing whether texting is as good of a form of communication as talking face-to-face.  My opinion is that texting is an inferior for of communication, because mere words will never be able to convey the emotions and subtleties that conversation has. On the radio today, I heard the results of studies that back up my viewpoint.

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There were many facets of the results, but they seemed to revolve around the idea that, by texting instead of talking, you are not learning how to recognize the subtle cues that people's voices, expressions, and body language give off.  In class, we discussed how emoticons can be used to convey emotion in texts, letting your friend know that your text is supposed to be sarcastic instead of serious; however, emoticons are of no help when we need to actually talk to somebody about something important.  The radio report mentioned that many times, people hide behind behind their detached texts when they need to give bad news, such as breaking up or telling a worker that his work is not up to par.  People also tend to use their use their phones as a way out of awkward social interactions, such meeting new people, preventing them from learning the skills they will need in interviews and meeting coworkers.  For some people, "awkward social interactions" becomes "every conversation";  a friend of mine spends almost all of his time looking at his phone, really irritating me when I'm talking to him.  Although I know he's paying attention, it doesn't seem like it when he's texting someone else, even though he responds to me(without looking up).

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Anyways, that's just what I think and what I just heard;  I know there are many different viewpoints on the matter. In fact, the radio host mentioned other researchers that believed that "communication is communication", and it's just as important through texting as it is through talking.  Both of the sources of my images are interesting reads.  The first is by a teacher who details why he went from calling his students to texting them while the second discusses the generation gap and modern technologies such as cell phones and video games.