Digital Dialogues: What’s Your Texting Style?
More than twenty-three billion text messages are sent around the world each day. That’s more than 270,000 texts per second, with the average person sending almost 5 messages a day. Despite growing use of Wattsapp and Snapchat, old-school texting (or SMS) remains a popular app for social communication.
So what’s the skinny?
Is texting a modern necessity for the busy world or is it, like social media, just perpetuating anti-social human behaviour?
I would say it’s a bit of both.
My name is Mina and I am a serial texter.
I admit it - I like sending texts.
It’s easy, instant real-time communication, and suits type-A personalities like me who don’t particularly enjoy small talk.
I can simultaneously work while juggling multiple conversations and organising various events, all with a few tappity-taps of my fingers. Truth is, I would probably have a smaller network and get much less work done if it wasn’t for texting, because I simply couldn’t have as many conversations in a day.
It’s not all good news though. There are negative effects of texting; such as information overload, bad posture which can lead to other health concerns, poor writing and grammar skills, declining social development and losing the ability to form real relationships. Not to mention more than 65% of Australians said that sending texts distracted them the most while driving, leading to hundreds of car accidents every year.
Notwithstanding, texting is here to stay and has become a ubiquitous form of communication. It’s also established a unique subset of people, defined by their texting habits.
So, what is your texting style?
For the first time in print (that I know of), here are the top 10 texter types and some important protocols to consider the next time you send or receive a message.
1. The Late Replier
You reply to a text a week after you receive it. Your messages start with ‘sorry for late reply’ or ‘been so busy’. FYI, no one is buying the fact that you didn’t have a few spare seconds before now. Unless you’re trying to tell the sender that in the scheme of your life they don’t matter, this is not acceptable. Return the text by the end of the day.
2. The Call Backer
As soon as you receive a text, you call the sender. You start with “I just thought it was easier to call” or “I hate sending texts”. Here’s the thing - the reason they are texting you is because they can’t (or don’t want to) talk.
3. The Serial Texter
Texting has become your main form of communication with everyone. You’re probably an ambivert who wants to stay connected, so this style of comms suits you perfectly. But when did you last speak to a human? Ps. In order to form deeper connections with people you will have to communicate by voice or (gasp), face-to-face at some stage.
4. The Over Sharer
You like to have lengthy and detailed conversations over text about something that happened in your day or an argument you had with your boss/ partner/friend. Texting is an SMS – which means short messaging service and the average text is just 7 words long. Using several sentences is not unreasonable, however if the reader needs to scroll to finish your message, it probably warrants a phone call.
5. The Abbreviator
Your texts are full of acronyms, gifs, symbols and avatars that only a millennial can decipher. For the rest of us, can we buy a word? Enough said.
6. The Avoider
When you reply ‘talk later’ to a question, it could mean several things. You don’t have time to reply, you need to check something first or you just don’t want to get into what the sender is asking. Whatever it is, follow it up and answer the question. If you were talking in person you wouldn’t leave them hanging, right? Like the late replier, failing to answer screams that the sender isn’t important to you.
7. The Ghoster
You’re having a nice text-a-tet with someone and then stop replying for hours, maybe days. WT? Ghosting is not cool and shouldn’t be done by anyone old enough to vote. Try taking a leaf out of the unicorn’s book instead.
8. The Unicorn
You promptly reply to every message and always politely end a text conversation. You will never leave anyone hanging. Well done Unicorn.
9 and 10. The Booty Caller and the Sexter
Both self-explanatory. You know who you are.
You probably know at least one person from every category here and I hope you have also truthfully identified yourself in this list.
Whether the negative effects of this non-verbal form of communication outweighs the necessity of its existence remains a question for the researchers. However the results are unlikely to have any effect given that in the few seconds it took me to write this sentence, another one million texts were sent around the world.
And another.
And another.