It has been several years now since I deleted most of my social media, which I regard as one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I strongly, deeply believe that the pace of modern life is far too fast, with people spending the vast majority of their time just trying to keep up – Snapchat streaks, Instagram stories, WhatsApp group chats, Facebook posts, TikTok reels, and so on and so forth. 

Now, one activity we tend not to include amongst the aforementioned list is texting, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that we should. For ease and clarity, when I refer to texting, I am including any sort of instant messaging, be it via SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or anything other similar method. I think the pace of technological change has been so rapid over the past 20 or 30 years that we fail to fully comprehend quite how seismic and influential the introduction of texting has been. Texting is arguably only one generation old, as I’m sure many fellow Gen Zers (yes, I am Gen Z, by the skin of my teeth) are constantly reminded by their Millennial parents, with their stories of having to actually knock on their friends’ doors to see if they were ‘playing out’ when they were younger, as opposed to sticking a message in the group chat, as seems to be commonplace now. 

Do kids even play out nowadays? Is that still a thing? Who knows, my point is that when considered from a historical perspective, texting is still an extremely new form of communication, and I don’t think we spend enough time properly examining its advantages and disadvantages. I’ve come to believe, perhaps unsurprisingly considering my recent conversion to luddism, that the latter far outweigh the former. 

Texting is a type of short-form communication, with no space for nuance, depth, or real exploration of thoughts and feelings. This would be fine if it served, as I believe it should, as a merely logistical form of communication, such as to arrange meeting times/locations or to send reminders. However, texting has arguably become the default form of communication these days, in the sense that, before the invention of mobile phones, the only way to communicate with somebody was to send them an email or letter, or to meet them in person, whereas now, we can ping them a message quite literally whenever we feel like it. 

I think the main problem with this is that texting is instant. There seems to be a subtle expectation that interaction should be constant and instantaneous, with no room for reflection or proper explanation. It is not uncommon, and I am guilty of this myself, to assume that someone is ignoring you if they haven’t replied within a couple of hours, and if you go a few days, or god forbid a few weeks, without texting someone back, then you probably look like a huge ignorant twat. 

I’ve been dipping my toe in emailing recently, which is itself a poor imitation of letter writing, but we’ll park that point for now. When I write an email, I find myself telling people things I’d never dream of putting in a text. The process of writing an email is thoroughly enjoyable, as it allows me to explore my own thoughts and feelings, whilst also communicating them to trusted friends, who then proceed to return the favour by offering advice and support whilst communicating their own thoughts and feelings on their own personal matters, which are often enlightening, amusing and genuinely rewarding to read. 

This is what I think we have lost with the rise and dominance of texting – the ability to really share our inner selves with those closest to us. Communication, like almost everything else in the modern world, has simply become another task that must be relentlessly optimised for efficiency. Now, even when you meet friends in person, it feels like there is nothing to share – you already know exactly what they’ve been up to, because they text you constantly as they do it, whilst you’ve simultaneously lost the ability to discuss anything that requires any sort of emotional or intellectual depth. Even these in-person social interactions can often feel like they’re being subconsciously optimised for efficiency, as you both attempt to transfer the maximum amount of information between yourselves as quickly as possible, regardless of whether that information actually adds any value to your lives, which it often doesn’t. 

These days, when I ask people questions like “How did that make you feel?”, or “Do you really think that was the right thing to do?”, people genuinely seem to think I’ve gone potty, so infrequently do they actually stop to consider the consequences of their own actions, since they’re usually too busy immediately communicating the outcomes of them instead. 

Another example – quite often nowadays when I match with people on dating apps and ask them what their hobbies and interests are, they don’t seem to have any. The most common response I get is that they’re too busy working to do anything, or that they spend most of their time watching TV or TikTok. Now, first of all, most of us work seven to eight hours per day, five days per week, so the idea that you physically don’t have enough time to have a hobby is preposterous – to be blunt, you simply don’t know how to prioritise your time. Secondly, if your only hobby involves staring at a screen, I am afraid that isn’t really a hobby. So, not only does the format of texting itself make it impossible to properly converse with people, but their complete lack of interests and purpose outside of their screens means that even if you try to, they often have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say anyway. 

The idea of Snapchat streaks, which I used to be a sucker for myself, is the perfect example of communication for the sake of communication. I have seen countless people send completely blank Snapchats just to maintain their streaks with their friends, of which they often have dozens (streaks, that is – whether you can call them friends perhaps depends on your definition of the word). I’d probably get called a boomer if I ever tried to call people out on this, and admittedly this is largely confined to the younger generations, but even so, at what point did it become normal to engage in such empty and pointless communication, if you can even call it that at all? 

Whilst we’re on the topic, I have actually lost a considerable amount of friends since I deleted all of my social media, although I suppose all that really shows is that they were never really my friends at all, since any friendship that requires constant communication simply to maintain it is likely built on foundations of the flimsiest kind. I will even go as far to admit that I have emailed a couple of friends I haven’t spoken to in a while recently, in the hope that we might rekindle our friendships with a more meaningful and interesting dialogue, yet none of them have replied. However, when I redownloaded Snapchat for a short period recently (I had just broken up with my boyfriend and was feeling rather vulnerable), I got instant replies from almost all of the friends I added, some of whom had failed to respond to my emails. I’ll let you draw your own conclusion from this turn of events. 

One of the other things that infuriates me about texting is that I will often meet someone for a coffee or go for dinner, and they genuinely spend more time on their phone communicating with other people than they do communicating with me, the person sitting right in front of them. Some people I know are definitely worse than others, and I am sometimes guilty of it myself, although nowhere near as much as I used to be, but because of our algorithmically induced need to be be constantly connected to the entire world, we are often sacrificing our connections with those who are literally right in front of us. 

To give a specific example, I went for a coffee with a friend I am, or at least was, quite fond of not long ago, and I told them what I considered to be some important news of mine. They responded with barely more than a grunt, before continuing to scroll through their phone. This is a perhaps an extreme example, and maybe I am just bad at picking friends, but I would wager good money that if you really thought about it, you too could recall an example, maybe several, of when you were excited to tell someone you care about something interesting or important, and they responded with complete indifference, absorbed completely in their screen.

I could go on forever, but my point is that we have almost completely lost the ability to communicate. We now converse almost entirely via texting, and even when we do try to converse in person, it’s often shallow and stunted, and utterly overshadowed by other conversations that are being had simultaneously via text. I don’t even really have any solution to propose, so relentless and inevitable does the continued rise of technology seem to be. 

I’ve seen a lot of articles/blogs on the idea of ‘dumb phones’ recently, and loyal readers of mine will know I am more familiar than most with the idea (see Reflection VIII), but having tried this idea myself, I think it’s probably going too far the other way. Yes, social media and other attention-grabbing apps are very bad for us, but it would be borderline impossible to actually live without a smartphone in the modern world; google maps, internet banking, spotify, and so on. Therefore, I think the most pragmatic, sensible thing I could suggest you do (which I have done myself) is to try and be intentional with your use of technology, and spend some time thinking about how you actually want to communicate with those you care about. Does texting serve the purpose you want it to? Does it enhance or diminish your friendships? Are there better alternatives out there? 

To use my own behaviour as an example, I make much more of a conscious effort to spend time with those I care about these days, and during that time I make further conscious effort to be focused entirely on them and what they have to say. Having deleted all but the essential apps from my phone, this is actually far easier than it used to be, which perhaps explains why I’m quicker to notice when others aren’t providing me their full attention. Nonetheless, it can still be a challenge, so I have also spent quite a bit of time reading about how to improve my skills as a conversationalist, and I now actively try to encourage whoever I’m with to elaborate on what they say, and to consider the meaning behind the things they say. To give a specific example, when I went for breakfast with a friend of mine earlier today, I asked them how they are enjoying their job, which got the standard “yeah it’s alright” response, but I then proceeded to ask them if they see themselves in that role in the long-term, whether it serves the goals they have (such as to find a partner, buy a house, settle down etc), and whether they actually enjoy it or see it as purely a means to an end. Not only did I genuinely enjoy hearing what my friend had to say, but this is perhaps also a perfect demonstration of the exact type of conversations texting seems implicitly designed to destroy. 

Ultimately, however, there is little point in my grandstanding about the evils of technology, especially since I am still such an avid user of it myself. I suppose all I can really do is try my best to continue to resist the corruption of my soul for as long as I possibly can. I suppose that’s all any of us can do.