LOST WORDS!

In our generation we have become obsessed with communicating with one another. People seem to constantly email, text, Twitter or Facebook one another and in a way our spoken words are no longer important. Teens are constantly looking at messages and being submerged over written words. They could easily take words out of context since the words are not spoken the important inferences and clarity of the spoken word are not received. It would be easy to pick up the phone and call and clarify, but the drama continues and people are mis- interpreted.

Chapter 10 of Alone Together by Sherry Turkle discusses how we no longer need to call. When we message over text, or email we can allow our self to hide. It is like what I said earlier about our two identities. By texting or emailing, we can allow ourselves to still continue our second identity, but on the telephone people can hear our voice or hear our flaws in our conversation.  Our real life now is shown and someone with two identities cannot be the other person they want to be.

Since we no longer use spoken communication as much, cyberbullying has become a huge problem in the United States. "Cyberbullying" is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. We are now constantly seeing commercials on "stop the cyberbullying" or "we are against cyberbullying". Kids don’t have to hurt each other face to face when online words and threats can hurt so much more intensely.  Instead of a face to face confrontation, kids can bully behind the clock of their computer protecting themselves and dishing out the ultimate hate that hurts people.  There is no way to clarify or resolve the situation from the other side of the computer with total satisfaction and resolution.

I read an article on the web called Six Reasons to Use Text Messages Instead of Voice Call  which discussed why people use text messages instead of voice calls. It was said when you send a text message, recipients can reply at their discretion. When people hold conversations over a cell phone in public, they tend to lose awareness (or consideration) of the people around them. With texting’s 160 character limit, there’s no room for discursive small talk. You have to get straight to the point. Most of these points were considered in Turkles readings.

With people wanting to use written communication more than actually speaking, I feel like the voice we have long fought for over the years has become silent. For example, when people have problems with someone, they do not confront them, they Facebook about it or Tweet and the conflict is not solved.  It’s actually made worse because now everyone else reading the conversation feels they need to interfere and add their opinion into the problem.  On an episode of Kim & Kourtney take New York, Kim has a problem with a friend and tweets about it. The problem that she thought was an issue was not even interpreted right. In the long run she hurt her friend because she did not talk personally to them.

Texts, emails, Tweets, all can be misinterpreted because we cannot show spoken emotion. I often hear my friends say, "Well you sound mad". How can I portray a sound through text or status? Written conflict is not always portrayed in the manner in which we would like it to be interpreted. Sometimes if we opened our mouth in a positive conversation, more action can be resolved. For the record Silence is not always golden so let’s “talk” about it!