Texting vs Face-to-face communication

Texting vs Face-to-face communication - Page 7

Maynarde

Australia1286 Posts

June 24 2011 06:03 GMT

#121

On June 24 2011 14:56 Irrelevant wrote:
I just text pictures of my junk

Oh god. Shouldn't have laughed. But I did.

I actually despise Facebook but not because it "kills relationships" or anything silly like that. There are lots of people I've met in person, then gotten their skypes / msn / whatever and developed a relationship further.

Developing relationships = Communication, and funnily enough Skype / MSN / Even Faceborg (resistance is futile) counts as communication. If the quality of communication is terrible then it's not really because of the medium it's because of said person's social retardation. Which will most likely also affect their face to face communication. This is all imo obviously.

NEOtheONE

United States2233 Posts

June 24 2011 06:05 GMT

#122

As a counselor-in-training, I wanted to share some of my thoughts along with things I have learned through my counseling program. My personal opinion is that text based chat should only be used when voice or face to face is not possible, like I talk to my gf while she's at work via IM. Social networking sites may seem to be a great way to keep in touch, but I'd say there more of a way to know a lot of useless information about the person and/or have a very shallow understanding of what is really going on with them.

Next, I want to share some personal experience. I am a bit of an introvert. IM, social networking, etc. lets me remain being introverted (and perhaps makes me more introverted) and still talk to people, rather than me having to physically go somewhere and meet people. While you may be thinking that can be a good thing, for me it's not. I have seriously considered deleting my facebook on multiple occasions because rather than help people stay connected, it gives people an excuse to not call you or do something with you in person. Why make the effort for a 15-30 min phone call, or 20 min drive then 30+min of talking, when you can just send a wall post in like 5 seconds? Thus I get frustrated because no one seems to want to make the effort to have more traditional forms of communication.

From a counseling perspective, in order to be a functional human being, you have to be able to have some skills with regards to in person communication. If you spend your life behind a computer or phone screen, then how can you develop social skills, read body language, or understand nonverbal gestures?

The Internet has greatly expanded communication, but it has also greatly expanded negative communication via cyberbullying. Rumors used to be spread through mouth and would only reach so far, but now people can torment someone and pass it on to thousands more. The anonymity and emotional detachment in text based communication leads to people saying things they would never say in person, but these things can have the same consequences as if they were said in person. People are too quick to forget that there's a human being with emotions on the receiving end of text communication.

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