Revolutionizing Anxiety - One Text at a Time

"Is she mad at me or is that a joke? I can't tell if he is being sarcastic or if that was a real insult... I sent that text 4 hours ago with no response, is she busy or is she ignoring me?" 

These are not uncommon thoughts that go through someone's head when communicating with another person nonverbally.  In an age where communication is constantly at our fingertips and has revolutionized the way we do things on a day to day basis, it seems to cause it's fair share of problems as well.  As we discussed in class, we miss out on so much when we choose to communicate with someone nonverbally as opposed to speaking to them face-to-face.  How are we to know if the person we are texting is being genuine if we can't see the look on their face or hear the tone of their voice? How can we judge if the person we just emailed likes or dislikes us if we can't see the immense or minimal space between us? The thing is -- we can't.  And that's the thing with nonverbal communication, there is no way to decipher these things and there is nothing we can do to change that.  

It doesn’t stop there.  Not being able to decipher how someone is feeling is not the only problem with the “revolutionary” way we use to communicate today; texting is actually causing people physical anxiety. 

One of the ways Apple has enhanced texting is allowing us to see when the other person is typing and when they have read a message we sent.  This seems like a pretty cool feature until you look at it the way Maryam Abolfazli, a writing in Washington, did when she described the gray bubble with the ellipses that indicates the other person is typing as, “quite possibly the most important source of eternal hope and ultimate letdown in our daily lives”.  In an article I found, Jessica Bennett describes that her therapist told her to turn off these settings because the time between texts has been causing her physical anxiety.  Personally, I find that to be totally ridiculous but also totally understandable, because I get it.  If you really think about it the time after you send a text that is “risky” or “high-stakes” feels like an eternity no matter how long it is in reality, but why? Why do we work ourselves up over things that are 100% avoidable if we had just had that “risky conversation” face to face, like it was meant to be had in the first place? The only answer I can think of is it’s just how our generation is, we rely on nonverbal communication because it’s “safer” when we can hide behind our phone and not have to deal with the confrontation, even if it causes us physical problems. 

The accessibility and ease of the methods of communication we have available to us today are definitely revolutionary. However, the amount of overthinking we put into deciphering messages and the pressure we hold on the features that are supposed to make our lives easier will not revolutionize anything but the stress levels of generations to come.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/fashion/texting-anxiety-caused-by-little-bubbles.html