We live in a time where real interaction with people is being seen as more bizarre every day. Today, people don’t enjoy true interaction. Instead we prefer interacting through Instagram pictures with filters on them, tweets that may or may not be our own personal thoughts, and text messages that we can write down and over analyze before we even press send. None of this is real to me. I tweet, I post Instagram pictures, and occasionally, I text people. The difference between how I feel about all of this and the average person is I don’t value any of those as methods of actual communication. Real interaction and communication with someone else is done in person, or even on the phone. A “like” on Instagram is not the same as someone telling you that you look good that day. A retweet is not the same as someone telling you that they agree with what you’re saying. And a text, no matter what is said in the text, is not the same as someone actually saying those words to you. No matter what is being said. At some point, we decided you don’t have to actual hear what someone’s saying to really understand them.
Let’s look at Instagram for example. Let’s take a woman who gets 100 likes on all of her pictures. She can post a picture in the morning and throughout the day accumulate 105 likes mainly from people she doesnt actually know. But, throughout that day not one single person that she doesnt know or even people she does know saw her and said “Wow, you look really good” or anything of the sort. So now she ends her day with 105 likes and not a single true compliment. Which would make her day more? (If the 105 likes make your day more then there is just no hope for you). This proves the worth or lack thereof of “likes”. Let’s say she could see her 105 followers that liked the photo in person. How many of them do you think would tell her how good she looked?
The exact same logic can be applied to twitter. It is not a REAL conversation.
Now let’s look at texting. Texting is very useful as a way to make quick plans or send quick messages but as a form of actual communication for a long conversation it’s almost pointless. I think texting is seen as most valuable when you’re “talking” to someone so let’s use that as the example. At this point men and women both know that we both overthink things. If you actually want to get to know someone, texting is probably the worst way to go about it. When you send a text you probably type it, read it over, edit it a few times, then send. This isn’t actually you anymore. When you are talking to someone face to face you can’t edit what you say, you can only say it. Through texting we try to show no flaws to the other person when in reality, we all have plenty. It’s when you get to see and hear these flaws whether it be on the phone or especially in person that we can decide how much we like the person. This is why texting as a form of getting to know people is ridiculous to me. (Other than the fact it isn’t an time efficient way to talk at all).
Oh and by the way, nothing is more ridiculous than when a girl says that she “just got the sweetest text” from whomever. A text? Really? An overthought message in a blue bubble can make your day? When I send a “sweet” text to a girl and she’s impressed I immediately imagine how happy she’ll be when I do REAL things for her.
Let’s move on.
Real communication is done in person or at least on the phone. There is something about hearing the other person that makes things completely different and more real. To get most of you to read this in the first place I had to Instagram or tweet the link. Which is cool, I guess those types of communication have some use but, not as much as we all think. After reading this you’re probably going to text someone, and that’s cool too. Texting isn’t a bad form of communication, it just isn’t the best. And when we text on the same device we could have made a phone call on, that’s when it just seems ridiculous to me. I tell girls I talk to all the time that you don’t really know me until you can actually talk to me because I may be way better or even worse in your opinion (99% of the time better of course) because what you’re getting in a phone call or real life interaction is really me. And that goes for all of us.
That’s all folks.
P.S
I am a people person. A REAL people person. Not just a funny “tweeter” or someone who posts cool pictures on Instagram or even may have a funny joke here and there via text (Yes I do all of those things but that’s not the point here). I am better at holding ACTUAL conversation than I am at any of those things. Truth be told, other than the couple jokes I may tell, I am a horrible texter.