Text messages are one of the most popular forms of communication today, with a staggering number sent every day. Unfortunately, in some cases they can be quite self-destructive. This is due to the text message’s brevity, which means that it can be difficult to communicate complex and nuanced thoughts through them. Here’s how self destructive text message is changing the way we communicate.
Avoiding communication
Self-destructive text messages are especially common in the workplace, where text messaging has become a popular way to avoid actually communicating with coworkers. This is of benefit when you know how to send a self destructing text message. It’s not uncommon for people to use text messages to ask questions that they could have asked over email or even in person.
They think that text messaging will save them from the friction of actually having to communicate, but this attitude actually hides deeper issues. Text messages can make it difficult to understand the context in which a message was sent, and can escalate tension by making it easy for misunderstandings to occur.
Passive aggressive approach
A passive aggressive approach is not uncommon when communicating through text message because of the ease with which messages can be misinterpreted. A passive aggressive message uses a nice tone while still getting across an underlying issue with the recipient. They create a false sense of security in the recipient, who assumes that nothing is wrong.
Lack Of Context
This is a big problem when communicating through text message because it can be easy to misinterpret the context in which a message was sent. A passive aggressive text message, for instance, may seem nice and friendly to one person but mean and insulting another. The recipient can’t read tone from the words alone and has no way to judge how the sender intends their words to be taken.