Texting can be a convenient way to communicate. There are days that Crista and I will use texting to figure out where to meet, what the kids have going on, who’s taking who to their activities. For those types of situations, texting can be useful. However, communicating through text regarding an emotional situation or a situation that doesn’t have a quick answer, can often lead to a misunderstanding.
It often goes like this:
His wife just walked into the kitchen and found her son with yogurt all over himself and the floor. It takes her 30 minutes to respond to her husband’s text.
Because she took so long to respond and her text was short, he is wondering why she is so abrupt.
Now the text is no longer about the issue but it’s becoming emotionally charged.
Wife is trying to clean up the mess the child had made. Again, her response is short because she is crunched for time and feeling overwhelmed.
Now the wife is wondering why he has an attitude.
Most of us can relate to a text conversation like the one above. It is more effective to have these kinds of discussions over the phone or in person.
How do we keep ourselves from turning a text conversation into a misunderstanding?
- Ask yourself, is this situation that I’m getting ready to text about is it better discussed in person or over the phone.
- Be careful, with attaching an attitude or an emotion to a text that you receive. With a text you do not have tones, body language, nor do you know if the person that is responding is in a hurry. You only have words. Words are only a small part of communication and can be misleading when they are isolated.
- If you are the receiver, don’t feel pressured to respond immediately. Sometimes, it is better to wait and think about your response, rather than sending a short response that might be misunderstood. If you do not feel comfortable responding, call. Texting is great, but sometimes a situation can be resolved over the phone in 5 minutes versus spending an hour going back and forth over text.
Do you have any guidelines when it comes to texting?
Comments
The article is VERY true. My daughter-in-law & I was just talking about this several weeks ago. With any given text, we can think or imagine the person is texting with a bad attitude, which we really don’t know for sure. I agree, when in doubt, CALL the person, then you will be able to hear their tone of voice; which may be totally the opposite of what we thought.
Thanks Brother for another good article !
Thank you for your kind words.