Skip to main content

Walls of Glass: Texting Versus Talking

Texting has its merits. You have time to craft your words so that you can communicate what you truly mean to say. Gone are the Freudian slips of face-to-face and phone communication. Whether that means you are more genuine, or less, I can't say, but texting does allow a more thoughtful reply.

Sometimes I wonder, however, whether a person is actually more truthful in his or her instinctive replies than in his or her polished ones. I think this is why I sometimes feel a little cynical of planned public speaking, because it is sometimes difficult to tell whether a person is crafting his or her speech simply to cater to the audience rather than, say, offering his or her raw thoughts on the subject.

I guess I yearn for a person's true beliefs (though I am hypocritical in this as well, because I wouldn't want people to spout out expletives or improprieties of speech because they didn't have the time to think through their words). As a teacher, too, I am conscious of the conflict between a need to present information in a clear, concise, and entertaining way; and the need to be genuine and open with others about yourself and your true thoughts. In any case, I believe, the standard of maturity in a public speaker is the point at which she can reconcile this conflict, and be both.

I suppose this desire for genuineness is why I prefer talking. Texting precludes voice tone and body language, which are both really important aspects of communicating with others. A person can say one thing, but communicate another, with his or her tone of voice and body language; and that more hidden message says more than a person's words.

As a result, there are fewer walls thrown up between two persons when there is phone or (especially) face-to-face talking. Either you learn to control your body language and tone of voice, and to craft your words in a way that sounds the way you want them to sound; or you let others see you more clearly. In short, phone conversation, and especially face-to-face talking, lead to more openness.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...