I remember a little more than 15 years ago having a meeting with my sales team at Alltel. Texting had launched and we were discussing our sales strategy. I stood in front of the room and confidently told them, "I believe this new technology is going to be huge! In fact, I think one day people might text each other more than they talk." My loyal team responded as most people would have at that time...they all laughed at me!
Fortunately, history has given me the last laugh. Texting is HUGE! Not only do Americans text more than they talk, one study in 2012 found that there were more people in the world who sent text messages then who had electricity in their homes! On average, each American sends and receives 94 text messages per day. People have clearly discovered that texting it is a great way to give and get information without getting caught in long conversations. But, there's a problem...
What has clearly become an amazing resource for communicating has also become a tool that is putting strains our our relationships. As we often do, our society has been using texting, emailing and messaging in ways they were not intended to be used. We are hiding behind these tools to avoid the awkwardness of having difficult conversations face to face. This is a huge problem because most experts agree that 93% of what we communicate comes from body language (55%) and tone of voice (38%). As a result, our texted "feelings" are being misread and misunderstood in a big way.
Feelings are being hurt and friends are avoiding each other over messages that are not being received as they were intended. Or, even if they were understood correctly, they are coming across much more harshly because the look in your eye and sound of your tone is absent. One of the first lessons I taught my children when they got their cell phones was that anytime they were communicating something they were emotional about, they needed to have that conversation in person. Or, at the very least, over the phone where their tone of voice could be heard.
I believe that communicating face to face has a HUGE impact on healthy relationships! In fact, I think a vast number of relationships could be saved if we would learn to always bring emotional conversations to each other. I hope you won't laugh at this revelation like my sales team did 15 years ago! I just might be right.