Texting vs. Talking

I also enjoyed our discussion in class about calling versus texting. I agree with what Amber said, and usually call people if I need an immediate response and/or if texting just is not appropriate for the situation. But if I am simply having a casual conversation with somebody, I will usually text them. However, I have found that if that during a friendship, we text more often than face to face contact, our relationship is somewhat more superficial and fails to develop into something deeper until there is real contact. There have been times during friendships I had to ask them, “did you really mean what you said?” Because with texting, it seems so casual that it is easy to say whatever is on your mind. Turkle talks about how through texting, people are able to think more about what they say before they say it, and therefore seem to be clearer and smarter. But it seems that there is an essential element missing during face-to-face conversation, where there is more spontaneity, expressed emotion, body language; it is more intimate, and even if people may seem to come across clearly through text, there is a clarity of body language that is expressed through face-to-face communication. We have all heard that a majority of communication is passed through body language and not words—so when we pare everything down to simply words, there is definitely a human element that is left out of the conversation.