Texting: The Good, The Bad, and The Irritating

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Although I’m not skilled at programming like my two sons, I consider myself to be fairly tech-savvy. I manage my own website, but when things do go south, I depend on my web hosting service and WordPress for guidance and solutions. I can navigate various platforms with ease and I generally know what settings to choose that make my experience satisfying.

Texting was cool when I first started using it because it was like talking to someone online. I used to have rheumatoid arthritis and during that time my left elbow was so inflamed and swollen that holding a phone to my ear with my left hand was painful. In fact, when I would try to end the call, my arm would be frozen in that position, and when I tried to unbend it, the pain was excruciating. If privacy wasn’t an issue, I could put the call on speaker which helped, but if not, talking online or texting was a welcome option. And for whatever reason, although writing with a pen was challenging because my grip was non-existent, typing during those years was still possible even though I typed more slowly.

Clearly, for me anyway, texting has its advantages, however, it also has its disadvantages. I like that I have a written record of a conversation that I can refer to but it seems hollow most of the time without hearing someone’s voice, especially if the texter’s intention isn’t clear.

One of the more irritating experiences I have with texting is that I don’t always know if the conversation is over, especially if I’ve asked a question and the person I’m texting with doesn’t answer. Where did she or he go? Was my question offensive? Or did something happen, an emergency perhaps? Or did the person simply get bored and walk away?

Sometimes the person will come back hours later and answer my question. But maybe I’m not near my phone and I didn’t know that happened, and then I worry the person will think I ignored the text. So, I apologize profusely for not seeing the text, just in case the person’s feelings are hurt.

Here’s the thing. My mother ensured that I grew up understanding the importance of etiquette which included the necessity of ending a phone call with some form of goodbye. Hanging up without saying goodbye was not only considered improper, but for many of the older people in my life at that time, it reflected badly on one’s upbringing. But nowadays, when texting, saying nothing has become standard fare.

Then there are what I call the power texters. They type so fast that twenty paragraphs will spill out before I can respond. By the time one of my texts does go through, five more paragraphs appear and my text gets lost in the shuffle. And at that point, I’m not even sure if I should respond at all. After all, maybe the texts were purely informational with no response necessary. But I’m a person who believes, again, thanks to my mother, that if someone talks to me, I should say something back. I should appear genuinely interested so that the person feels heard and understood.

If I do text a comment or question and my texting buddy doesn’t respond, do I repeat that text? Or do I move on as if I said nothing at all? That would never happen in a normal conversation, and if it did, it would be more difficult for the person to ignore me unless they want a witch with an irritated look on her face staring back.

Should I resort to texts using all capital letters or will I be accused of shouting? Which is exactly what I would be doing, but apparently the written word in the tech world has its own brand of etiquette and I’m happy to comply.

So, I decided to follow everyone else’s lead and occasionally not respond or say goodbye when I’m ending the conversation. Of course, the first time I did, I could hear my late mother’s voice in my ear saying, what on earth are you doing? Didn’t I teach you better than this? But I breathed through it and these days I’m not panicking if I read a text and don’t respond, at least right away. And I also don’t worry if I’m the one doing the power texting and I’m not finished when a comment comes through. At least I do go back and see what was said and respond to it.

I guess that’s progress.