To make things clear I need to point out in this entry that I am mainly referring to direct messaging between two people via regular old text messages. There are those who say this is not social media since it is direct and not public. There are those who say it is. I am in the camp that says at least on the most basic level texting is a form of social media, although it really doesn't matter. The situation that is on my mind right now could happen if the messages were in a thread on Facebook, X, or any of the other non-verbal platforms. It could even apply to good old physical correspondence.
Okay. Down to business.
In our
modern digital world text messages in whatever form they take have become as
much, or more than the normal way for people to communicate. My kids’ generation seems to prefer
communicating by text rather than voice but there are plenty of people who are my age (older than dirt) who agree. As a result there are several people I keep in touch with on a regular basis with whom I
have not actually spoken to in months and in a few cases, years. They prefer it that way. I don’t but if I want to stay in touch I have
to respect their wishes.
Don’t misunderstand
me. I like the convenience of being able
to drop a quick message to someone to let them know something they should be
aware of. There are situations where a
voice call is not practical because of one of us being unavailable or whatever
is to be said is brief and not urgent.
“Well,”
you think, “What is the problem with this?”
I feel that only communicating by lines of text on a screen is dry and impersonal. It is extremely hard at times to know how your message is being received. You can’t hear the tone of the recipient’s voice. You can’t tell if they are mad and typing so hard they are about to break the screen on their phone or damage their keyboard. A little joke can be taken as completely serious and therefore could be offensive if the person on the other end of the conversation is upset when the message is sent and the person or just isn't in the right frame of mind to receive it in the context that was intended. It doesn't even have to be a joke. It could simply be that one or the other could misunderstand the meaning behind the message.
I have two
disastrous examples that I am going to relay here. Both are of messages between one close friend
and myself. I will not identify the
person since this blog is public and I WILL NOT air my differences out
publicly.
I will refer to my friend as “Jay”. He and I have been friends in real life since the early 80's. For the past two decades he has lived about 1,500 miles from me and has not been back "home" in at least fifteen years. We texted often but due to his preference rarely spoke on the phone.
The first example occurred about ten years ago. Bear with me here, context is needed. Jay had gotten into a dispute with a local
business. He had marijuana in his possession that
was legal since it was prescribed. The
business is a tourist attraction and he had purchased an annual pass. I don’t know how staff members determined he had prescription marijuana with him but the business had
a policy that marijuana wasn’t allowed inside.
I don’t know all of the details but as I understand it he was approached
and told he had to throw his prescription out if he wanted to enter. He did so.
He was then told that despite having a pass to enter he was forbidden to enter and was banned from the location for life. Management even refused to refund the cost for the remainder of the time on his pass.
As Jay was
relaying this to me I could tell how upset he was. I was expecting him to take legal action and
fully supported him. As I was
understanding the situation what that did was wrong and I was looking forward
to him getting things corrected. Remember,
all of this was relayed by texts. Jay
doesn’t not like to talk on the phone much.
I don’t recall exactly what I said but stated my readiness to sit back
and watch the drama unfold. I was eager for
the fireworks he would unleash.
Jay took
my response in a completely different way. He somehow got the impression that I was supporting the business over
him. I immediately got blocked and unfriended
on Facebook. I was soon told by a mutual
friend that he thought I “threw him under the bus” and that he couldn’t believe
that a friend of twenty plus years would do that.
I refused
to draw our mutual friend into the matter and endanger her relationship with
him so it took between two and three years for me to get the opportunity to reach
out to him and patch up our friendship.
Now we are back where we were before. Last month Jay blocked my text messages and has unfriended and blocked me on Facebook. I don’t know what I said. I know what the last message I sent to him was but I don’t understand how that could have offended him so badly that he would immediately block me and cut off all contact. Again, if we had been speaking to each other he could have heard the tone of my voice and I could have heard his and known he was upset and said something different or at least kept silent.
Are those examples of the failing of communicating by social media enough?
These are just two examples. I used to spend a lot of time in IRC chat rooms and regularly saw similar situations get someone kicked and banned from a channel simply because their post was misunderstood. I have had friends (IRL or online) get mad
enough unfriend me on Facebook or stop talking to me IRL because they were
offended or angered by a comment I made. In all of the cases they had
misunderstood what sentiment was being said simply because a line of text on a screen
cannot properly convey the mood and tone that I had in mind when posting.
I’m open
to your thoughts on this. Leave a
comment and I will get back to you and, hopefully, not be misunderstood.
