Bringing Texting Back

I am technically a millennial, but these days I feel increasingly out of touch with the media narrative of a typical 20-something. I’m fairly loyal to Instagram and Twitter. I have Snapchat, but I never used it. I won’t download Fling — the concept of strangers from all parts of the world sending me selfies (some of which are just Not Suitable For Life) totally bewilders me. And in the past few months, I’ve noticed that more of my friends are ditching communication over these newfangled platforms to go back to the old school. No, not phone calls — text messages.

We don’t show a lot of respect to the text message, the old safety pin that held my adolescence together. When I could only keep seven texts on my Nokia, it meant prioritizing conversations (“Where r u?” — delete) and treasuring certain people’s words (like a prized love letter along the lines of “*Buks nxt wk?”). There was a fine technique to texting, an etiquette, an appropriate window to wait before replying. It was a medium that considered everyone in our lives – work colleagues, family, friends, love interests. It was so simple.

But then we got Facebook and Twitter and WhatsApp and Snapchat. Our conversations became fragmented and because of that, some were forgotten. What started as a Direct Message may have gotten lost between FB Messenger and GChat because streams of thought no longer occur in one central location.

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with connecting on multiple platforms — communication is fundamental to human beings. I don’t believe our children will grow up silent, speaking with each other solely through staccato messages under 140 characters, and I definitely don’t buy the scare story that we’re forgetting the art of communication. But I do worry that the plethora of conversational options is moving us away from the roots of interpersonal dialogue. It’s the disconnect that leaves people cold.

We need to bring back the text message — a private exchange between a select group of people where there’s no third party present to “like” it, no room for conversation to get lost in translation from one app to another to another.

If we were engaging in witty banter, texting offers the fifteen minutes I might need to come up with a line to match yours. And if we were arguing, texting would allow a whole hour to conjure up a shoot-‘em-dead rebuttal so poisonous it hurts to read. Without an “opened” notification or the double check of WhatsApp, you’d be free to think I was skydiving, or writing a novel, blissfully unaware of your message. I’d have time to think, and you’d know my response meant something.

More than anything, texting expresses a genuine desire that Person A wants to connect with Person B — so much so that we wouldn’t want the words and pictures exchanged to disappear after ten seconds. “*Bucks next week?” would once again become a happy token to cherish.

So let’s celebrate the text. It’s close as we’re going to get to non-selfish communication, for now.

Homepage image by Tommy Ton.