Filed under: Friends, Relationships, Techy Side of Me, Venting | Tags: communication, conversation, face to face, friends, instant message, joking in texts, mixed messages, relationships, sarcasm in texts, social media, technology, text
Text messages and online instant messages are the quickest way to tell someone something.
Photo by Nesster/Flickr
I’m sure you heard a “but…” coming after that statement, and I have a big one. (Not talking about my bootylicious backside though… sorry to disappoint.)
One thing I’ve run into a lot lately though is a lot of misunderstanding over those modes of communication. Sarcasm, joking and other hints that you can pick up in person are gone when technology is the middle man. The best way to express that kind of stuff is with an *eyeroll* or a smiley emoticon, and even then, it can be completely misread. How that happens is lost on me.
And then you add someone like me–who takes everything literally and takes it all to heart–and a lot can be misunderstood. Sometimes hurtful even if it’s not meant to be. Now I’m not going to go into a lot of detail on this, but let’s just say I’m having struggles with one of my friends over this. My text messages were misconstrued as giving attitude when I was trying to poke fun at an issue we’ve been having. My aim was to get a giggle and a “You got it! :)”
Such never happened. Cue friendship frustrations over something that I think is pretty stupid.
God, it makes me so angry sometimes! Everything that can be turned on its head and misunderstood just because it’s transferred through technology. It is getting so bad lately that instead of having important conversations over texts (and even some non-important depending on who I need to talk to), I’m asking when we can get together and talk. Heck, I call more now whenever I can so I don’t have to put up with the innate mixed messages that technology masks conversations with.
If you talk in person, you can read the other person’s facials, body language and pick up on when they are sarcastic or being totally serious. If you talk in person, there is less to be guessed, less to be analyzed, and less to be understood/ misunderstood. It’s clean and get’s the job done so much more effectively. And there’s no hard feelings!
Well, unless someone’s calling you a two-faced bitch to your face. Then you may need to rethink what you’re doing all together if you’re getting that reaction from people. ;)
MikShorty 
