Speed Versus Volume

 

For a while there, I drove my daughter nuts. Probably still do, but in this instance I knew why.

          Ten years ago or so, I preferred email to texting for longer communications. I’m a writer for one thing, and in an email I could say everything I wanted, with the added comfort of typing it out on a keyboard, where thanks to that touch-typing class in high school, I’m much more proficient.

Plus, email felt like a mutually convenient way to have a long chatty exchange since I could write when the mood hit me and the other person could answer whenever they wanted.

My daughter preferred texting, probably for its immediacy.

And while I was guilty of rarely having my phone handy so that I’d hear the DING! of a text coming in, she was forgetting to check her emails. All is resolved now, and my main form of communication with most people seems to be texting, and daughter calls several times a week to chat.

And yet, I have a friend who must not grasp the concept of timeliness, who will often wait several days before answering a text. She’s always enthusiastic about whatever is being proposed – a play, lunch with another friend – but it takes forever for her to get back to us. 

Ironically, she also uses texting the way I used to use email, sending paragraph-long messages on that tiny keyboard.