Texting has increased in popularity in the past couple decades as our main form of communication. There are many benefits to instant messaging which have resulted in new relationships between people and have even allowed them to rekindle past ones.
Texting alleviates the anxiety associated with starting conversations in person. However, there are new anxieties that have developed as a result of being able to hide behind your screen. For example, people have adopted certain rules that coincide with how long you must wait to reply to a message.
According to Viber, 95% of texts will be read within three minutes of being sent. With that being said, it is safe to say that although people are ruled by their phones, they still want to seem like they are not becoming slaves to technology. People do not want to seem desperate and react instantly to all the push notifications they received every hour.
IPhones have the capability to track your social media and texting habits and generate reports based on your personal usage. On average, adults spend 23 hours per week texting.
My biggest texting pet peeve is when people leave a large amount of unopened texts in their inboxes but continue to respond to others. The people who fall in that category tend to appear valuable to others and enjoy giving out advice. People who leave others “on read” or take forever to reply risk coming across as disrespectful, as we live in a society of instantaneous communication.
Technology is slowly taking away face-to-face interactions, and although we are globally connected, people are starting to feel more disconnected and alone. I may be an old-school person, but I prefer to speak with my friends in person.
Texting can be a hard skill to master and recipients at the other end can interpret your texts differently than you intend them to. My golden rule to avoid situations like that is to include emojis when it seems appropriate.
Another pet peeve of mine is when people do not use capital letters in their texts. Without the capitalization of words at the beginning of texts, it appears you lack basic grammar skills, and in some cases, may even make you appear less educated.
Simply being aware of these texting issues can enhance your communication style and make you appear smarter. It is especially beneficial to abide by these rules when texting certain people such as your boss, a professor or an older adult.
As a writer, if you take these texting issues into consideration you can sound more educated and proper. These tips will not only help you text people of authority, but it will also help you practice everyday grammar techniques.
