What do you say when you write? Interpretation of text messages

The interpretation of text messages has been our daily bread since the arrival of mobile technology and instant messaging. However, it is worth noting that misunderstandings have always existed in one form or another.

In the prehistory of technology, when the exchange of letters led us to buy stamps and stamps of different values ​​to send letters to different parts of the planet, messages were misinterpreted, and it took days – or perhaps months – to rectify, between letter and letter. We talk about the time of mailboxes, post offices and mailmen.

Telegrams shortened waiting times, but simplified information. Later, the fax favored even more immediacy, while expanding the information in the telegram.

When the digital age began, the emails and everything became more immediate. Then came text messages with the rise of mobile telephony, and then some difficulties could already be seen in the interpretation of the messages.

To the extent that the emails, text messages and other means (such as tweets), people began to encounter a systematized way of relating, as well as the limitations of written verbal language and the lack of paraverbal language.

The complex phenomenon of communication: I don’t just hear you, I see you

Human communication is a phenomenon composed of two types of language that coexist simultaneously:

Verbal language itself, composed of a syntactic structure, grammar and semantics.Non-verbal or paraverbal language, which concerns general gestures (mainly of the face, body postures, hand movements, tonality, rhythm and cadence of the expression of speech).

The communication studies in the 1960s that revolutionized relationships between people were led by anthropologist Bateson and his team, who postulated that “all behavior is communication”. This means that it is impossible not to communicate. Therefore, silences also mean something in the interaction.

When our interlocutor speaks we are not only listening to him, but we see him and vice versa, which means communication cannot be limited solely to wordsbut results from the synergy between verbal language and the non-verbal universe.

However, language forms can not only be expressed through speech (with its paraverbal components), but also through written language. There we find one of the main sources of misunderstandings: the lack of gestures and intonation, which show the relevance of non-verbal elements of communication.

When a sentence is written, and a certain cadence is given, exclamation points are not enough. The same happens with irony, jokes, sarcasm, imperatives, aggression, romanticism and a whole endless range of modal expressions that succumb in written language when gestures do not intervene.

The WhatsApp world and the interpretation of messages

Technology, although it structured communicative immediacy, also had its share of contribution to misunderstandings. This type of phenomenon is observed when we enter the universe WhatsApp: Written messages, since they do not have paraverbal investment, many phrases are read according to what the recipient feels or interprets.

When we read a book, it is not the book that the author wrote, but the book that the reader constructs. We are the readers who fill the book we read with meanings., the play we watch, the movie we watch. Likewise, we are the ones who do the punctuation, description and meanings.

How many times did they give us a photocopy in high school or university – which had been underlined by our classmate – and we noticed that those paragraphs he pointed out were not relevant to our synthesis and that is why we underlined others!

We print in what we read or see how we feel that day, what happened to us, what we think, what we want, and much more. Which is why it is common to want to present interpretations as facts. For example, when we read a text, we believe we have grasped the meaning that its author gave it and we say things like: This is surely so!

Why doesn’t it occur to us to ask ourselves if the voice we give to the text could be different? Let’s take another example: a group of students reads a text. They have reached a conclusion and when the teacher asks them if it is feasible to read it in a different tone – and he does – they are surprised. Then the teacher asks: is the conclusion still the same? Or rather the answer may vary?

Emoticons everywhere, loss of verbal rhetoric and misunderstandings

The repertoire of emoticons offered by instant messaging is increasingly developed in gestures. Thus, Emoticons help to more accurately interpret the written message. However, communication problems have not ceased and the truth is that emoticons are not illuminating elements in all cases.

The technological empire has modified communication. Text messages have created situations of expression reduced to what the telegram once was. Much of the verbal rhetoric has been lost. Extensive dialogues are conceived and developed on WhatsApp, instant images are sent that synthesize descriptions about what I am eating, what I am doing, reading, watching…

Besides, The use of written messages serves to avoid facing situations, from saying “no” to a proposal to breaking up with a couple. Comments on Instagram or Twitter, or YouTube videos also show numerous cases of gratuitous attacks carried out by anonymous accounts, which depend on the mood of each individual.

It is notable to see how the verbal exchange through a dialogue, for example, by telephone, has become established in people who refer to a generation who today are 45-50 years old or older. People of that generation met in bars face to face to tell each other things, to tell each other about their particular lives. Instead, today photos and videos are sent ad hoc.

In view of this, many people from the generation of the 1940s and 1950s have notably criticized and resisted the technological world. They flatly affirm that cybernetic advances are a delay for human relationships, as well as the use of mobile phones. People of that generation do not adapt to changes or, rather, they resist them: but You have to understand that what is new is not better or worse, but simply different.

The view, the emoticon and the interpretation of messages on social networks

A study published in the journal Cyber ​​Psychology and Behavior Journal states that Millions of couples in the world have ended their relationship because of Facebook or WhatsApp. One of the differences between WhatsApp and other forms of written messages (messages via SMS, email, Twitter or Facebook) is that it reports the interlocutor instantly.

For example, you can obtain information if the person is online or not, what was the last time they were online. Also if the person “saved it”, that is, if the message was read but not responded to.

Although there is an option that allows you to hide that famous blue mark (double check, in English), when activated it not only disappears for you, but is also invisible for the rest of the contacts. I am not visible if I have read the message or not and if I am online or not, but I am not aware of the rest of my interlocutors either. It seems, according to experts, that most people do not disconnect that application: that is, curiosity to know what our contacts do is more powerful than for them to find out what we do.

One of the typical conflicts occurs when a message has been sent and there is no response., knowing that the other person has received it because it is clearly visible due to the change in color of the brand. You can also know if the person is online or not, for example, at a time when they should be sleeping. What are you doing awake? This WhatsApp observation could be the beginning of an overwhelming effect towards an emotional catastrophe.

Emoticons and text before videos

All these communicative advantages and disadvantages have given rise to a multiplicity of interpretative readings, that although there is the option to record or film yourself, the written option is the most used with emoticons that support certain phrases, moderately reducing confusion. However, there is a visible increase in the dependency generated in young people by the excessive use of WhatsApp and how this can influence their emotional stability.

A team from the University of Palermo (Buenos Aires) investigated the interpretation of messages sent or received in instant messaging in a population of young couples. They asked respondents how many of them had ever had conflicts with their partner over misunderstanding a text message.

87% of respondents said they have or had problems because the message does not let you know exactly how it is being expressed. The big difference with face-to-face communication is the how, that is, the gestures, gaze, and tonality of expressing the message.

The interesting and paradoxical thing is that when it came to using a form of communication to resolve the conflict caused by the misinterpretation of the messages, the means used was the same one that generated the problem: WhatsApp.

The majority of those surveyed, specifically 47.9%, stated that for one reason or another they always ended up using WhatsApp. The reasons? Practicality. While discussing, other things could be done (multitasking) and only 25% stated that they always resolved their relationship conflicts personally.

Be that as it may, messages in general are always intended to be interpreted by the recipients. But in person, the synergy of the non-verbal universe shapes the content of what you are trying to transmit. It must be kept in mind that written communication transmits only content, without the how, which in a certain way sculpts the meaning.

Now we have to ask ourselves: What are we interpreting at this moment, while we read what another is trying to convey? How are we interpreting messages in general?

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