A Constant Ponderer: “Text and Email: A Horror Movie Starring You and Me”
The human voice can be soothing or jarring, bored or invigorated. Computer text can be Times New Roman, Comic Sans, Calibri, Lucida BRIGHT, Lucida CALLIGRAPHY, Lucida HANDWRITING; the list goes on.
The simplicity of “hello, goodbye” has been ambushed by unintended meaning; even as computer text itself is lifeless, we give it a life of its own.
We forego the richness of the human voice and opt for time-lagged, time-stamped responses. I am wholeheartedly as guilty as you are, dear reader.
We torture ourselves with wait time and an inability to sense meaning because of COURSE we cannot sense meaning behind a text message ... it’s ones and zeros! Why do we kid ourselves?
We no longer have the luxury of down-right asking, “what do you mean?” Even if one types such an inquisitive sentence the answer will (most certainly) only fuel the ambiguity. It’s laughable, really.
We infuse our words and the words of others with meanings that may or may not be there.
The question is why? Why do we e-mail and text the ones we love instead of using the phone in its true glory — the ability to hear another’s voice when you’re miles and miles away?
Is it really the convenience that attracts us? Are we really too busy to talk on the phone but not too busy to type? Or do we prefer the silence, do we prefer the piece of plastic in our hands that doesn’t respond, doesn’t think, or feel? Do we not know what we want to say into it? Do we HAVE to know what we want to say?
What started off as convenience has turned into a dark curtain. We hide the good and the bad.
How often, when you do call someone, does the conversation go exactly as planned? You may have a reason to call but often times the conversation does not follow a predetermined linear progression, it deviates, climaxes, relaxes. Do computer messages do the same? Typed words cannot steer a conversation in the same way as spoken words. Does he/she want to keep talking to me? Is this goodbye? Or should I send one more emoji to seal the deal? Torture. Seriously.
I’m not on a pedestal here; I’m as risk-averse as any other texter or e-mailer but I don’t necessarily want to be. I want the risk back. Maybe VOIP will save the day.
Sadly, we’ve also lost the ability to be ‘away’.
We no longer feel free to be occupied, to be unreachable, because it can hurt others too badly. Compelled to respond, we split ourselves into two, three, four, five (!) by trying to be authentic and respectful to everyone’s line of computer text that flashes before our dry, red-shot eyes.
If the text message represents someone we care about, we don’t want to hurt them, but why, or when, did we become so sensitive anyways? No one can escape it, we are all more sensitive in this communication-crazy world. We feel shunned when we are ignored because if we had spoken words over the phone and the communicant on the other end didn’t respond we’d of course feel hurt, but how often does that happen?
Whereas with text, we often ask questions, express sentiments to someone and stare at a lifeless screen for five minutes wondering where the response is? Maybe your friend/lover/brother/aunt/dog/cat, what have you, is in the bathroom? Maybe they are pouring themselves a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc or unwrapping a nice fat piece of chocolate? Whatever they are doing, we are hurt that they didn’t put the wine bottle down and respond to us.
We choose the torment; we choose to torment ourselves and those around us. Text is here; it’s not going away but maybe we’ll eventually torment ourselves enough to leave the text message, or even e-mail, to it’s rightful domain- who, what, where, when, and why- and leave the rest of human expression to voice.
