I Heart Texting
But I do remember a misty, far-flung time, gentle reader, when people used to actually talk. And not just on Skype. Sometimes we would actually travel to physically juxtapose ourselves in order to converse without using a single intervening electronic device. It was often not as unpleasant an experience as one might imagine. And utmost store was placed on the oratory and rhetorical skills required to explore such intercourse in a stimulating, robust manner. We found this a cunning artifice, as it removed or vastly reduced the chances of misinterpretation.
As texting, IMing and email have become more prevalent, so they have come to replace phone calls as our primary mode of communication. Indeed, the unwieldy interface of email is currently going the way of the postal service, giving ground to the far more convenient short typed messaging systems (that invariably come pre-loaded and loiter on our gadgets like skint hipsters at a sponsored poetry slam). There’s nothing else quite like the convenience of carrying a pocket-borne message board one can address at one’s leisure.
The problem with prose-based communications is their inability to broadcast nuance. There’s no verbal tonal inflection to convey subtle meaning, nor other non-verbal cues, which qualify, according to some sources, up to 90% of our speech. Emoticons can give us some indication, but such crude pictorial suffixes generally allow little in the way of emotional resonance or intent. I have had several text conversations recently that required a phone call or face-to-face interaction to clarify.
One of the reasons is I sometimes attribute an overabundance of perception to my texting recipients. I expect them, for example, to be fully aware of my constantly playful (and therefore exasperatingly tiresome) demeanor. I rarely use emoticons (because, on my particular phone, they are such a pain in the arse to type. I have to visit a veritable legion of different menus and scroll around each like a forensic detective hunting for an elusive semen stain. Then I must confirm my choices in a labyrinthine sequence of affirmations that would perplex even the most absorbed of quantum physicists, numerous times, all the while typically breathing an alternating anthology of confused and murderous expletives. Upon completion of this interminably tedious exercise, during which I’ve usually missed a couple of meals, a nap, and a night out with the lads, I cannot help but happily pirouette and swoop to one knee in a dazzling, tits-and-teeth, jazz-hands finish. (Where’s the emoticon for that, then?)).
Even when I am genuinely annoyed about something, it never comes through in my face-to-face conversation. I often grossly overstate my rancor as a way of both expressing and dismissing it. The ridiculous extent of the overstatement assures the listener I am kidding around (sometimes I even factor in an eye-twinkle or a flash of dimple), and the expression of it dissipates my displeasure. It’s a win-win. No one gets hurt. Everybody’s happy.
But not on text. Oh, fuck no.
I made the mistake of trying this a few weeks ago and sparked an epic turn-based email conversation that is still, in some ways, unresolved. As a result, I was asked, in a roundabout Yoda-like way, to explore my feelings. Which, for a bloke, is always a bit uncomfortable, as we’re not always aware we have any. Ask me about fishing, and I can describe you a related emotion. Or about how that pie tasted. Or the muted complexities of association football’s offside rule. But when it comes to expressing self-reflection, we tend to be at a slight disadvantage due to a pronounced lack of practice.
In the course of the same conversation the perception was voiced (okay, typed) that, based on the initial text message I sent, I have a frivolous temper and apparently habitually misdirect my anger.
What?! Me?! Happy, wordy me?! DON’T BE SO BLOODY DAFT!!!! HOW DARE YOU?!!!!
See what I mean? I’m completely relaxed.
Oh, hang on a minute, forgot the thingy...
My point is that such a massive waste of thought and writing would have been drastically averted by a simple, real, thirty-second dialogue. The catalyst of that protracted prosaic conversation was nothing more than a simple miscommunication, which subsequently snowballed into a Kraken of one, thanks to the medium through which we discoursed.
So is this portable message board really that convenient?
Yes. But don’t expect anybody to know what you’re talking about if, like me, you feel the need to be inflective. If you want to avoid such grief, give them a call or even better, meet up.
As texting, IMing and email have become more prevalent, so they have come to replace phone calls as our primary mode of communication. Indeed, the unwieldy interface of email is currently going the way of the postal service, giving ground to the far more convenient short typed messaging systems (that invariably come pre-loaded and loiter on our gadgets like skint hipsters at a sponsored poetry slam). There’s nothing else quite like the convenience of carrying a pocket-borne message board one can address at one’s leisure.
The problem with prose-based communications is their inability to broadcast nuance. There’s no verbal tonal inflection to convey subtle meaning, nor other non-verbal cues, which qualify, according to some sources, up to 90% of our speech. Emoticons can give us some indication, but such crude pictorial suffixes generally allow little in the way of emotional resonance or intent. I have had several text conversations recently that required a phone call or face-to-face interaction to clarify.
One of the reasons is I sometimes attribute an overabundance of perception to my texting recipients. I expect them, for example, to be fully aware of my constantly playful (and therefore exasperatingly tiresome) demeanor. I rarely use emoticons (because, on my particular phone, they are such a pain in the arse to type. I have to visit a veritable legion of different menus and scroll around each like a forensic detective hunting for an elusive semen stain. Then I must confirm my choices in a labyrinthine sequence of affirmations that would perplex even the most absorbed of quantum physicists, numerous times, all the while typically breathing an alternating anthology of confused and murderous expletives. Upon completion of this interminably tedious exercise, during which I’ve usually missed a couple of meals, a nap, and a night out with the lads, I cannot help but happily pirouette and swoop to one knee in a dazzling, tits-and-teeth, jazz-hands finish. (Where’s the emoticon for that, then?)).
Even when I am genuinely annoyed about something, it never comes through in my face-to-face conversation. I often grossly overstate my rancor as a way of both expressing and dismissing it. The ridiculous extent of the overstatement assures the listener I am kidding around (sometimes I even factor in an eye-twinkle or a flash of dimple), and the expression of it dissipates my displeasure. It’s a win-win. No one gets hurt. Everybody’s happy.
But not on text. Oh, fuck no.
I made the mistake of trying this a few weeks ago and sparked an epic turn-based email conversation that is still, in some ways, unresolved. As a result, I was asked, in a roundabout Yoda-like way, to explore my feelings. Which, for a bloke, is always a bit uncomfortable, as we’re not always aware we have any. Ask me about fishing, and I can describe you a related emotion. Or about how that pie tasted. Or the muted complexities of association football’s offside rule. But when it comes to expressing self-reflection, we tend to be at a slight disadvantage due to a pronounced lack of practice.
In the course of the same conversation the perception was voiced (okay, typed) that, based on the initial text message I sent, I have a frivolous temper and apparently habitually misdirect my anger.
What?! Me?! Happy, wordy me?! DON’T BE SO BLOODY DAFT!!!! HOW DARE YOU?!!!!
See what I mean? I’m completely relaxed.
Oh, hang on a minute, forgot the thingy...
My point is that such a massive waste of thought and writing would have been drastically averted by a simple, real, thirty-second dialogue. The catalyst of that protracted prosaic conversation was nothing more than a simple miscommunication, which subsequently snowballed into a Kraken of one, thanks to the medium through which we discoursed.
So is this portable message board really that convenient?
Yes. But don’t expect anybody to know what you’re talking about if, like me, you feel the need to be inflective. If you want to avoid such grief, give them a call or even better, meet up.
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