Hi, my name is Paul Justin Mancuso but I prefer to go by P.J. I am a sophomore at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences majoring in Communications. This is my first semester at Cornell after transferring from Marymount-Manhattan College in New York City. I have lived in the city my entire life, and I am still getting used to the very different lifestyle up here in Ithaca. I have also played basketball my entire life, and I am currently deciding whether I should walk on to the men’s varsity team.
Anyway, over the past few months I have noticed an exceeding number of individuals who appear to be consumed and obsessed with the texting features on their cell phones and blackberrys. Though sending an occasional text message that relays fact, such as “I’ll be 10 minutes late,” is definitely a healthy function of text messaging, all too often, individuals, like myself, engage in day-long text conversations. While it is convenient to converse in hour-long conversations through text messages alone, obsessive text messaging definitely has negative repercussions. It is arguable that text message, immediate-response-conversations, which Wallace would categorize as a quasi-synchronous form of communication, negatively affect face-to-face social interaction. Obsessive text messaging, for example, can potentially offend individuals who are not texting, but are in the presence of an obsessive texter; and, text messaging may also instill the false notion that it can substitute for speaking to someone in person, or over the phone. Also, constant text messaging may lead to multi-tasking, which may not be as productive as talking to one person at a time, or doing one anything at one time.
Interestingly, however, I find that the more I text, the more I feel the need to text. Though people who text know that it is rude to do it in the presence of others, and that it is perhaps the least involved form of communication, individuals still engage in long text message conversations. Trying to remember what it was like before text messaging came about, I wonder if we were all better off without it. It seems that aside from its efficient way of relaying facts and short messages to one another, which is undoubtedly helpful, text messaging has negatively affected us, as it is has lowered our standard of communication to short, nonverbal messages.
3 comments:
Paul, I think that many of us can relate that either we ourselves are obsessed with text messaging or we notice that many other individuals are addicted to the feature. I like how you divided texts messages into those that relay quick pieces of information and those that consist of back-and-forth conversations. The possible negative affects of texting which you mentioned all seem to make accurate points. Just the other day, my friend told me that she got upset after someone confronted her on always having her Blackberry out messaging people. The fact that she was confronted in the first place supports your idea that individuals in the presence of an obsessive texter may be offended by the action. However, if this a method of communication which we prefer among some others, is that really a bad thing? This same friend who likes messaging on her Blackberry also prefers talking online rather than on the phone. You may be starting to get the impression that my friend is socially awkward; however she is actually quite the opposite—she just prefers some channels of communication over others. As new communication technologies are developed and adopted, I believe we can choose which forms we’d like to use with different individuals and for different purposes without necessarily affecting our face-to-face interactions.
Paul, I found your particular post very interesting. Our society is becoming more and more obssessed with written communication and as a result is diminishing the importance of face-to-face or even phone conversations. A valued conversation, where true feelings are expressed, is done in person.
I am personally very guilty of this. I send and receive a variety of different text messages daily. Some are short and sweet and may say something like "I'm running late". Others, however, may be a 45 minute long conversation about nothing in particular.
I even find people are replacing important conversations that need to be done in person with text messages. For example, guys nowadays will hide behind their precious i-phone or blackberry screen and ask that beautiful girl he met a few weeks ago to dinner Friday night. Text messages take away from what could have been a very meaninful conversation.
I also believe that real personality traits cannot be portrayed through written messages. It is hard to interpret specific personality traits such as humour (ie. through sarcasm), or sensitivity (a simple "awww" doesn't cut it).
Also, text messages can be easily misinterpreted. A simple joke, could be taken as an insult. Tone and expression cannot be judged properly through written messages.
For many people, the quality of our conversational skills is decreasing. How can you improve upon your face-to-face chats when you always hide behind your phone, your screen name, or your email address? This is not to say that those who constantly text are poor socially. There is a balance that we each can find where we can make text messaging a positive addition to ours ways of communicating without interfering with our face-to-face conversational skills.
P.J.,
I agree that some people take texting too far. I don't mind it for quick messages, but having long conversations with it is probably anhealthy way to for a relationship, which many people use it to do. I myself decided to not pay fr a texting plan, so that I only use them in apporpriate situations. The only setback is that I can't control whether or not people send me messages (which I also have to pay for). As for texting in front of other people, I don't think it's rude, it just makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason, like I look like a huge loser. Anyway, good post.
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