Final- The Effect of Texting on Communication

Sureiny Fermin

Professor Johan Cohen

Communication in Society

May 20, 2019

The Effect of Texting on Communication

History

The communication technology I have chosen is texting. Texting is a modern phenomenon that has transformed the live of billions. SMS stands for short message service and was developed during the GSM technology. According to “A SMS History” by Alex S. Taylor from Microsoft Research Cambridge, the SMS concept was developed in the Franco-German GSM cooperation in 1984 by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert. GSM stands for global system for mobile communications. Taylor writes, “in the process of the network design and development in the 1980’s, it was recognized that it would be possible to send short data messages at the same time as speech using what is known as the “signaling channel” or “layer” of the network.” It was not originally intended for the end user to be a mobile phone so there various flaws. SMS was not expected to be popular so the mechanism behind it was lacking until it was realized it was becoming well-accepted within different communities. The very first text message, “Merry Christmas”, was sent in 1992 from Neil Papworth. He was a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms. Since phones did not have keyboards at the time, Papworth had to type the message on a PC. After keypads were developed, mobile phones usually had a 0-9 keypad, so sending messages was time consuming and a bit irritating. To type one letter you had to press a single key more than once and to get a different symbol in the same key you had to press it twice or more.

Taylor writes, “because SMS was thought unlikely to gain mass appeal, little initial effort had gone into establishing a model for charging those using pre-pay or “pay-as-you-go” options; pre-pay packages from the network operators made no reference to SMS and, more importantly, no mechanism had been put in place to link pre-pay billing with the use of the short-text message service.” Since there were loopholes with the system, some operators gave pre-pay users the chance to send messages for free and of course people abused this. This led a lot of young people taking advantage of free text messaging, which made it popular. However, operators put billing systems into place to avoid people abusing the free messages they had. You used to only be able to send messages to people with phones on the same network but soon operators agreed to allow for messages to be sent despite which network your phone was connected to. In 1993, Nokia was the first manufacturer whose GSM phone line supported user-sending of SMS text messages. It was also the first manufacturer to produce a mobile phone with a full keyboard: the Nokia 9000i Communicator in 1997. It was also in 1997 when full keyboards were introduced with the Nokia 9000i Communicator. The first “smartphone” can be dated back to 1992 when the IBM Simon, a handheld touchscreen PDA, was launched. Apple introduced the first iPhone  (smartphone) in 2007 and it had features such as the virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard is what we are accustomed to today for smartphones with automatic spell check and predictive text technology.

Effect on the brain

Text messaging has affected communication from the beginning of its conception. Recently, scientists have noticed the impact texting is having on our brain, which is responsible for many key life functions. The brain is the command center for the human nervous system and is one of the most important organs in the human body. If texting is affecting our brain then it is definitely changing the way we communicate. The brain controls language, speech, our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, analyzing information, memory and more.


                                                                                                                       This video above describes the effects of texting on the brain.

According to the psychologist Susan Weinschenk, a unique pattern of neural oscillations or brain waves appear when people are texting. She attributes the addiction of texting or finding it impossible to ignore emails and notifications to dopamine. In her article, Why We’re All Addicted to Texts, Twitter and Google, she writes, “Dopamine is created in various parts of the brain and is critical in all sorts of brain functions, including thinking, moving, sleeping, mood, attention, motivation, seeking and reward.” She states that according to the latest research dopamine causes seeking behavior. It is the culprit that causes you to want and desire. It does this by “increasing your general level of arousal and your goal-directed behavior”. Texting makes it easier to talk to someone who is far away, in a different country, or continent. It allows you to keep up with your loved ones and further develop relationships. If you want to contact someone, you would just send them a text message and might get trapped in “a dopamine induced loop”. Weinschenk writes, “Dopamine starts you seeking, then you get rewarded for the seeking which makes you seek more. It becomes harder and harder to stop looking at email, stop texting, or stop checking your cell phone to see if you have a message or a new text.” Your phone and certain applications might have set mechanics that induce this seeking. The number of text messages you have appears on the right top corner of the text messaging application on iPhones. The auditory cue when you receive a text message immediately distracts us and affects our dopamine system. It is suggested to try and eliminate these cues by putting restrictions on your phone in order to prevent getting distracted and ending on a dopamine loop.

Effect on communication

Humans are social beings. People use texting to talk to friends, family, even strangers. People also use texting to get dates and plan events. Texting is fast and convenient but is it negatively affecting us? The answer is yes, to an extent. Texting has become a form of addiction and is affecting face-to-face communication and interactions. I see more and more students not paying attention in classes because they are texting people or checking social media. Some positive effects of texting include having a means to communicate ideas and thoughts in almost no time, multi-tasking, replying to others when you have time or want to, having control of the conversation, requires less energy, and provides less pressure among other factors. However, it is also causing people to lack physical communication skills. Face-to-face human interaction is suffering because spending quality time with your family and friends is no longer the same. Misinterpretations are also frequent because of lack of emotion with text messages. Sometimes, texting might be an unrealistic form of communication, since it lacks the touch and visual components needed to form close relationships. The language used in texting is also infiltrating professional environments. Students are using slang in scholarly papers and professionals might start implementing it in their work.


This video above discusses the unintended consequences of electronic communication.

https://www.adcouncil.org/Our-Campaigns/Safety/Buzzed-Driving-Prevention

The article above describes a campaign called “Buzzed Driving Prevention” created by Ad Council with the message “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving.”

According to the research paper, Impacts of Text Messaging on Adolescents ’             Communication Skills: School Social Workers’ Perceptions, by Jacqueline B. Graham, “Approximately 63% of adolescents report text messaging an average of 60 times per day (PEW Internet and American Life Project, 2012). Adolescents dedicate approximately 90 minutes daily to text message communication.” Texting is becoming the preferred form of communication with young adults. They use it at home, with friends, and in school. They take their phones with them everywhere so the texting application installed on their phone or other texting applications are always available. Graham also writes, “The impacts of texting among adolescents can lead to problematic outcomes such as poor school performance, interruption in sleep habits, bullying through text messaging, texting while driving, sexting, and other negative effects on communication skills.” While texting does provide students with the opportunity to reach others faster, the negative effects that result because of texting are outstanding. Texting done in moderation is the best way to solve this predicament.

In conclusion, texting has changed the world by providing a way to instantly connect with anyone. It has also affected socials skills and communication. Texting allows for easy communication between people and is ultimately convenient. Texting is fairly new but is now used by billions of people and by different age groups around the world. It has become an integral part of many people’s daily functions and many cannot live without it. It seems as if texting is as normal as brushing your teeth. It is convenient so it is no surprised it is such a largely used form of technology. If we do not pay attention to the potential threats texting and cell phones in general present, we might be on our way to raising a generation dependent on technology. Technology has impacted the media industry massively. It seems as if media can no longer exist without technology. My prediction for the future of media and digital culture is that there will be more applications to enhance communication. However, these advances in technology will continue to have an effect on communication. It is important to teach the youth of today the advantages and disadvantages these technologies have to prevent addiction and poor communications skills that are essential for daily life.

Sources:

Erickson, Christine. “A Brief History of Text Messaging.” Mashable, Mashable, 21 Sept. 2012, mashable.com/2012/09/21/text-messaging-history/.

Graham, Jacqueline. “Impacts of Text Messaging on Adolescents ’ Communication Skills: School Social Workers ’ Perceptions” St. Catherine University. 2013. https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=msw_papers

Taylor, Alex. “An SMS history.” L. Hamill, A. Lasen, January 2005,  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226340906_An_SMS_history

“Why We’re All Addicted to Texts, Twitter and Google.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-wise/201209/why-were-all-addicted-texts-twitter-and-google.

2 comments

  1. Great work on this. I didn’t realize there are so many physiological ramifications of texting. I think I need to stop texting as much or just put down my phone. After writing this, did it make you want to stop texting?

    1. Thank you. I do want to stop but it is becoming increasingly difficult. It is the easiest way to contact family and friends. I am trying to do it in moderation! Setting time limits help. I probably will not stop texting but I will be more aware of the consequences.

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