Miscommunication in the Digital Age
Texting in the twenty first century is like writing letters in the twentieth. Non face to face communication can cause a misinterpretation along the way because you can not always sense the tone the person is sending. A simple joke face to face could come across as a harsh insult over instant messaging.
Over the last few years the use of emoticons has helped to clear up some miscommunications. Adding a laughing face to the end of a harsh sentence could show sarcasm. Also the use of emoticons can replace some words. That could be where misunderstandings occur today, where you could use an “emoji” to mean one word someone could take it as meaning something else.
A time in my life that a miscommunication happened was a few years ago when I first got a phone. I was about eleven or twelve years old. I had gotten a slide phone and an apple ipod for Christmas. When I first started texting friends I just used my phone. Later on I downloaded “Snapchat” to my ipod, so I could communicate with even more friends. As I would go back and forth between texting and other instant messaging apps I started to feel flustered. I believe I felt this way because there was so much going on at once. When I would get flustered the messages I would be reading would start to seem different. The difference was tone. As I read messages I would become confused because things in my mind that sounded funny were coming across as mean to my friends.
To fix this problem I started typing my tone in parenthese before my messages. This was sometimes a hassle and a pain, but it helped with the confusion. Although I eventually just gave up and now I deal with the frustration of miscommunication by just saying what I meant when something happens.
Texting in the twenty first century is like writing letters in the twentieth. Non face to face communication can cause a misinterpretation along the way because you can not always sense the tone the person is sending. A simple joke face to face could come across as a harsh insult over instant messaging.
Over the last few years the use of emoticons has helped to clear up some miscommunications. Adding a laughing face to the end of a harsh sentence could show sarcasm. Also the use of emoticons can replace some words. That could be where misunderstandings occur today, where you could use an “emoji” to mean one word someone could take it as meaning something else.
A time in my life that a miscommunication happened was a few years ago when I first got a phone. I was about eleven or twelve years old. I had gotten a slide phone and an apple ipod for Christmas. When I first started texting friends I just used my phone. Later on I downloaded “Snapchat” to my ipod, so I could communicate with even more friends. As I would go back and forth between texting and other instant messaging apps I started to feel flustered. I believe I felt this way because there was so much going on at once. When I would get flustered the messages I would be reading would start to seem different. The difference was tone. As I read messages I would become confused because things in my mind that sounded funny were coming across as mean to my friends.
To fix this problem I started typing my tone in parenthese before my messages. This was sometimes a hassle and a pain, but it helped with the confusion. Although I eventually just gave up and now I deal with the frustration of miscommunication by just saying what I meant when something happens.