Text Messaging Gone Wrong-

Text messaging has become a world renowned revolution that many people have made their main source of communication. For example, today I called my doctors personal line to reschedule an appointment, and instead of getting a call back I received a text message saying what days she was available. Not only are people using it for pleasure, but now for business as well. My question to text messaging gurus is when has it affected you negatively in your communication skills?

Most "texters" have most likely received a text message like the one above. A lot of times texting, messages can get lost from sender to receiver....but why? Text messaging does not have any way to show emotion, so funny texts can be received as being mean or crossing the line. Or sarcastic texts can be taken as a serious comment. I am sure that every person reading this has gotten into either a fight over text messaging that has gotten them nowhere or has been extremely confused by what someone was trying to say over a text. This is one way that texting creates confusing and hurts our communication skills, because it isn’t always an accurate depiction of what someone is trying to say.

Another way Texting can harm our communication skills is by the constant hiding behind a text that a lot of people do now. "Hiding behind a text" just means that people have a fear of talking face to face or on the phone so they do all their communicating through text messaging. Behavior like this can cause someone to have very low self-confidence when it comes to interacting in a social setting. Making people interact with each other is the only way to help them break down the fear of social contact. Now that text messaging doesn't force people to call or talk face to face anymore it hurts people's interpersonal communication skills. Face to face contact with someone should not be an intimidating thing. I have learned now with interviewing for jobs that the more I talk to people that make me uncomfortable face to face, the better I get at it. Who’s to say what is going to happen to communication skills if even our doctors are now texting us? Text messaging needs to be limited in how often we use it and not the only means of communication. That is when it starts to affect us negatively.