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Matthew Perez

Professor Granillo

English 101

18 October 2018

Texting Helping Us or Killing Us

Texting is big right now in the 21st century as something that is done every day at every

second in life and phone calls are happening way less which is changing communication between

people indefinitely. In the article “No Need to Call” by Sherry Turkle, Turkle explains her intel

on the need to only text instead of calling which to her is quite unnecessary because she refers to

texting as fast, easy and a way to feel more confident. She argues that in today's circumstances

texting is a way to go rather than calling because of its convenience rather than what she claims

as a “phone call asks too much, they worry it will be received as demanding too much” (Turkle

507). In relation to ethos, logos, and pathos, Turkle is mostly motivated by pathos with her

emotions and personal experience. Although Sherry Turkle suggests in her article “No Need to

Call” that texting is a great alternative to calling because of her personal feelings and

experiences, some may suggest that Turkle is being too personally motivated and does not

realize the consequences that texting has; consequently people especially teenagers need to be

encouraged to talk on the phone more to express true emotions, improve communication skills

and prevent them from using textspeak over text.

Turkle’s motivation came from the people and the world around her as she noticed a

decrease in phone calls from all her friends and many people she knew. There is one of many

reasons that calling is too intrusive in many situations, especially nowadays with the easy
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alternative of social media and email. An example Turkle uses is from a friend that she quotes

saying “ At dinner, Joyce said that she had thought of calling to congratulate me, but a call had

seemed “instructive” (Turkle 508). This represents a piece of many sorts of problems that are

being created by texting and giving the young generation an excuse to not speak to one another.

Reasons like this also just create problems between people who don't speak and don't get the full

experience of communication. Having this type of habit incorporated into young people's minds

is creating bigger problems for people. With the emotion they feel, they are becoming less

motivated to speak and share their feelings with one another. Turkle refers to others a lot in many

situations by using their experiences with phone calls which is why they prefer texting because

they claim texting gives them the opportunity to think and hide behind an invisible wall.

Therefore the teen generation is allowing their emotions to prevent them from communicating

along with decreasing their communication skills. With the lack of any communication, teens of

today will not be able to communicate when they need to or are required too giving them fewer

chances of success in jobs and school.

Expressing emotions over the phone is one of the best ways of getting a message and tone

across to another person. Turkle in her article mentions that people can express emotions through

simply texting and using grammar to express their feelings. Texting is simply not a good use of

communication to understand the emotions someone is feeling. Joseph Saur explains in an article

reviewed by older adults that “We have learned that talking is more satisfying than texting, and

visits trueness over voice” (Saur 2). This represents a view from many experienced people who

have spoken over the phone many times and have really experienced the full story of

communication rather than forcing a message through some words over text. Also explaining the
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better representation that speaking on the phone allows, which is found to be a way easier way to

communicate with someone. Speaking over the phone allows the other person to understand and

hear emotions like tone, speaking pace, and verbal language. Overall expressing emotion through

the phone is the best way to get a message across to someone who may not be fully aware of

their emotional state.

Speaking on the phone directly benefits the clarity in conversations and allows people to

talk more generally though verbal communication rather than just text message. In many

situations, people are prone to just keeping thoughts to themselves and decide to send a text

message instead of contacting the person verbally. Having to speak on the phone allows space

for clarity in a conversation, which improves their communication skills. In reference to people

who have learned from calling, they state “Many business people testify that talking on the

phone offers new possibilities to fix up business appointments, arrange for wares to be delivered

and develop clear time schedules” (Brinkman). It's been proven to older people that

communicating on the phone can enhance a clarity aspect that texting cannot do at any level.

Likewise, improving communication skills by speaking to an individual and adapting to multiple

peoples speaking styles. Overall, talking on the phone is an experience that can be a much better

alternative to texting by which itself just promotes people to adapt to using the textspeak

language.

By always texting it’s causing many people especially young teens to start speaking and

writing in textspeak, defined as the language of the internet. In the article “Text Speak and

Personality Perceptions” explains the issue about the impact of textspeak by claiming “Text

Speak users may even receive less positive evaluations in more informal,
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impression-management contexts, particularly if co-communicators are making judgments about

the individual based on what they write” (Fullwood 2). Texting is what Sherry is promoting as a

good thing opposed to talking on the phone, but as research suggests, texting is influencing

textspeak in writing which is impacting the way young people speak, communicate, and write.

Technology is literally negatively affecting the way young people get jobs, even after college.

Therefore, texting is impacting them in the outside world when they need to use their writing and

communication skills that they learned, which would be lost due to the adaptation of the

textspeak language.

Talking over the phone is the best alternative to texting, although some may agree with

Turkle that texting is the best way to get information across rather than talking on the phone.

That’s not a reasonable solution to communication but actually a worse way to communicate

because it’s causing people to write differently in textspeak by using terms like LOL, JK, and

IDK. Academics also note that some Internet language, which may have initially been expected

to remain restricted to text-based communications like “(e.g., acronyms such as ‘‘LOL’’), are

now being spoken” (Fullwood 2). This is the textspeak that is being spoken and written by many

teens in their everyday lives, which is not helping them improve their communication skills for

their future selves. Including the now commonly used “internet language” which shows the

unfortunate direction new young people are going towards. Referencing this type of language is

only really necessary in a brief text, but applying this language to speaking conversations and

writing is not a good way of communicating. Speaking and writing in those ways is creating a

new language that is not taught in school because it's not needed for anyone's future in the

professional or mainstream industry.

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Sherry Turkle’s audience is faced towards the younger crowd of people that seem to be in

between the era of mixed phone calls and texting. Turkle herself is deeply involved in the texting

era which is her preference for communication. She displays a picture in her article of four

teenagers using their phones to text or involved in any sort of social media, she quotes

“Teenagers plugged into their devices but not each other” (Turkle 510). Sherry Turkle herself

even admits a side of opposition by displaying and saying what texting is doing to the new

generation of people. She refers to a friend that experiences the same perspective as seeing no

point in calling for the reason that it's inconvenient and a way to be themselves. This relates to

people needing to improve their communication skills that are becoming reluctantly bad because

of their in communication from only texting. In addition to her claim, she only presents herself

and her friends that experience the same level attitude towards the simple life of texting. Her

audience is limited in only the direction that texting is better for those who are like her and want

to keep a more quiet identity.

All in all, Sherry Turkle was being to personally motivated in her article only stating

what she believed was great for her in terms of texting and the people who had stories in direct

correlation to hers. Texting is causing people to use text speak, and become weaker in terms of

their communication skills. Turkle visualized calling someone as a nuisance and was only

necessary to get an important topic across. She didn't fully see the full advantages to calling on

the phone and the impact of clear communication that is transferred over a call. In describing the

alternatives to texting, Communication over the phone verbally is the best way to express

emotion and get a real one to one conversation that will positively influence their communication

skills. So despite the general knowledge of the convenience of text messaging, just calling
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someone on the phone rather than texting can only bring more clarity and trueness into a

conversation that will benefit anyone more than they imagined simply by just talking on the

phone.
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Works Cited

Brinkman, Inge. “Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa”. Nyamnjoh,

Francis B. Bruijn, Mirjam de. eBook Collection ​Bamenda, Cameroon. 2009, ​pg. 23-24.

Fullwood, Chris. “Put on a Smiley Face: Textspeak and Personality Perceptions”. Proquest. Vol

#18, March 1 2015, pp. 1-6.

Saur, Joseph. “Talking Still Beats Texting”. Knowles, Bran Hanson, Vicki L.​Communications of

the ACM, Vol. 6​1 ​Issue 5, ​Business Source Elite, ​May 2018, pp.10-11.

Turkle, Sherry. “No Need To Call”. “They Say I Say” Edited by Gerald Graff, Cathy

Birkenstein, Russel Durst, 4th Edition. W.W.Norton, 2018 pp. 505-524.