An old friend of mine who abhors all forms of modern technology especially ‘screens’ thinks that texting is a toxic form of communication.I am beginning to think he may be right! The problem with texting is that it is immediate and there are no auditory or visual cues to guide us in the communication.It is only words without context.This can easily lead to sliding off the path off compassion and kindness.Estaghfirullah.I think I ,myself may have fallen victim to this deviance on more than one occasion.God help us all.
Amen 🙏
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I think that this is a fundamental difference in the way young people (who grew up with this form of communication) and older people (who had to learn to use it as adults) communicate. Young people find a way to get their message across. It could be by using emoji =) (text-based or pictorial), or by putting strategic EMPHASIS with capitalization or punctuation marks!!! (!?!?!!!) Adding written laughter (lol or Ahaha~ which can be capitalized for emphasis as well) can also help somebody know how the text should be read.
This language is in continuous flux! A recent example that I absolutely LOVE is the use of the upside-down smiley face emoji (available on iPhones and Facebook, but not Android) to indicate a sarcastic or sardonic statement. You get the tone of the statement right away, just by adding that one little upside-down smiley at the end.
In the end, I think this form of communication is not bad, but requires learning a new set of rules to inform the other person of your tone and what your intentions are. This is something which can take many years and can differ from one person to the next! I suppose young people just have a head start! 😉
Interesting😊 Thank you for your contribution to this discussion,