Texting ≠ Conversation
Why are conversations so terrible on dating apps?
One phenomenon I’ve noticed with my interviews or when I’ve observed people ‘Tindering’ or ‘Bumbling’ is that the conversation is often terrible, awkward, and kind of dead. I began to wonder, is the art of conversation lost? But after much thought I realized that texting is more like writing and not like a conversation.
Texting is actually writing
Texting is more akin to writing. As soon as you begin typing, you start to become conscious and self-edit your words. Texting is also an efficient communication method. It works well when we are trying to send small snippets of information. It’s also asynchronous, it doesn’t necessarily happen in the moment, it can be passive and intermittent.
For the reasons above, it means that when people text on dating apps, they tend to pre-meditate and scrutinize every word. They often ask other people for advice. Sometimes the opposite happens, people chose to not text as frequently to avoid giving an impression that they are ‘desperate’ or ‘clingy’.
Texting is often missing context, we lose the benefit of non-verbal communication cues (facial expression, tone of voice, etc.) so we might misinterpret messages.
Conversation is a richer communication method
Conversation is more like an exchange of ideas. It’s free flowing and less calculated. And it’s also more forgiving. When you hear someone speak, you can ask someone to clarify what they mean. We even know when someone is trying to be dramatic or sarcastic, which is near impossible when deciphering text messages. In essence, conversation is an active dialogue, a rich exchange between people because you can understand tone, can gauge someone’s expression much better.
Texting with strangers is hard
I think the reason why texting is extremely challenging with strangers is because you have no idea what they are like. You’re not sure how to interact with them. You have no history with one another so you are more critical of what they say. Another common thing is that you’re afraid to say the wrong thing so you might not say much. All of this leads to bad conversation.
Why does this matter?
I believe that conversation is the conduit for connection. Conversation is how we relate with one another and build empathy. If we don’t have a real dialogue, it’s hard to feel connected. This is why texting is challenging with strangers on online dating platforms. Messages are too hard to interpret and you are also worried you will be misinterpreted as well.
We have a hard time expressing ourselves
Christian Rudder analyzed conversational patterns on OKCupid, comparing the number of characters typed vs. characters sent. The diagonal line represents when the number of keystrokes match the number of characters in the text. In other words, people who plot closer to the diagonal line mean they aren’t self editing as much vs. the people away from the line. But in this example, he points out two outliers: Message A and Message B.
Message A
This person plots very high in the number of keystrokes, which means that he definitely spoke his mind and didn’t hold back. But maybe he went a bit overboard. In fact, this person spent 73 minutes and 41 seconds to write 5,979 characters of hello. A+ for brevity?
Message B
In contrast, the person who sent Message B had an opposite approach. In fact, he took about 387 keystrokes to arrive at “Hey.” This is equally as crazy. But we sympathize with this guy. I mean, how many times have you backspaced your messages through email or instant messaging?
In truth, we’ve probably sent our own ‘Message A’ or ‘Message B’ at some point — saying too much or too little.
Actually — it’s really hard to express ourselves
How many times have you struggled at writing a bio about yourself? Or when you have to introduce yourself at work or to new people, and they ask, “tell me about yourself”, you’re paralyzed with wanting to make a good impression but not knowing where to begin.
I think in general, we have a hard time expressing what we want because we’re anxious about how someone will interpret it. I think this fear and anxiety is escalated when it comes to texting because once you send a text, you can’t take it back.
Maybe we need better forms of expression online?
Online dating platforms have been forced to limit interactions to texting to try and minimize unwanted messages being sent. While this is understandable, I believe it’s worthwhile to to consider ways to foster better communication online. I realized this when I began using the voice recording feature on Facebook Messenger. I was trying to update a friend on my research and I found texting to be too slow, so we started recording ourselves instead. Astonishingly, this was an amazing experience. It wasn’t perfect but it was certainly easier than setting up a Skype conversation and we were able to exchange ideas much more fluidly.
Richer communication!
The lesson here is that we need to be communicating and expressing ourselves much better to be able to connect with someone on a deeper level. If you’re forced to write a profile online or text, don’t say too much or too little. Try and push yourself to reveal more about who you are and be less guarded. And if you feel you can’t quite find the words, maybe you should pick up the the phone and record yourself talking.
