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There are more mobile phone subscriptions (8.31 billion) than there are people on the planet (8.02 billion), and 65% of them use text messaging. That’s around 5.4 billion individuals typing, hitting send and dropping decent, polite, rude, chaotic or completely unhinged communication bombs all around the world. And the war of words is only expected to heat up.
“Globally, the number of people who send and receive text messages is predicted to surpass 6 billion by 2027,” reveals the SlickText site.
Not too surprisingly, Gen Z is the generation leading the pack. The site notes that many are glued to their texts and group chats, with 48% checking their text messages more than 10 times per day.
According to SlickText, 80% of people surveyed said text was the number one thing they use their phones for. 1 in 3 people said they check their texts within one minute of receiving them, and over half text back within 2 minutes.
An analysis by Subtext, a text messaging and conversational marketing platform, found similar results. The company went through performance data from more than 10 billion text messages sent to 28 million subscribers across eight different industries.
“SMS open rates average 98%, with 95% of messages opened within three minutes, far faster than email or social," the report reveals.
According to SellCell, a whopping 25 billion text messages are sent globally every single day. That’s 1 billion per hour, 17 million per minute, or 289,000 per second. It’s no wonder that there’s so much chaos, drama and comedy being screenshot and posted online.
While text messaging is fast and convenient, it can’t compare to face-to-face human interaction. And that’s why we see so much miscommunication happening over screens. Text messages cannot accurately convey tone, emotion, facial expressions, gestures, body language, eye contact, oral speech, or other conversational cues.
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“All too often, relationships go sour due to miscommunication via email and text messages,” warns Scribendi. “To keep this from happening, simply avoid using these mediums to have important conversations. Instead, request the kind of communication you prefer, whether that's face-to-face or over the phone.”
The site adds that when people communicate primarily via text, they're much less likely to have meaningful conversations.
Text messaging has introduced us to a whole new way to deal with conflict: “Fexting,” or fighting over text. And sometimes, we don’t even realize that we’re in the thick of it…
“In an in-person conversation, many cues can tell you that a conversation is heading in the wrong direction. However, that may be harder to discern via text,” explains VeryWell Mind. “One way to recognize you’re entering argument mode is by noticing your emotions. If you start to feel angry, hurt, or upset, you may be in an argumentative space. Experiencing physical signs of anxiety can also indicate that the disagreement is more than minor.”
The site adds that a straightforward way to know that you have moved into an argument via text is “if you find your responses getting longer, where you feel the need to explain yourself and your position in depth.”
That’s because texting is typically a brief form of communication. When you start typing a thesis to back up your argument, you may be heading for disaster.
“Texting is generally a quick back-and-forth exchange, and when arguing, it can get even faster. It may be tempting not to read all of a person’s reply before you respond again, and the more upset you get, the harder it may be to express yourself clearly or to clearly understand the person you’re fighting with,” warns VeryWell Mind.
