The image above is not real! There was never a real conversation with the famous filmmaker, Steven Spielberg and the graphic was created at ifaketextmessage.com.
The Rise of Online Communication and What It Means
Sad, but true! Let's face it. Social media and the World Wide Web has taken over our lives for years now. It has even taken over our relationships with people. I personally blame social media for how people have related to others. It isn't only what people say on social media or how businesses or organizations have advertised their missions or stated their messages. Social media has allowed us to communicate in different ways than we did 20 years ago.
Years ago, people were writing letters and putting them in the mail, kids were passing notes around in class, people actually had real conversations on their landlines or old cell phones that had no Internet or text messaging and children and teenagers were getting together, hanging out somewhere in the neighborhood talking, laughing and even greeting each other with a hug. Though, there are still a lot of people who still do those but these ways of communicating aren't as popular as they were once social media and text messaging came into our lives. Why? Text messaging is just more convenient and quicker for many of us and people love posting what's on their minds on social media and sharing what they find online.
There's just one issue I have with how we communicate on social media and when texting. The buttons and emojis! I'll post something interesting and all I see is someone hitting the "Like" button on Facebook. No comments. Just a thumb-up icon, or an angry, red face or a laughing face. I know what most of those emojis mean except for the thumb-up. When you hit the thumb-up button, it can mean a lot of things. It could mean you liked it, agreed with it, thought it was interesting or you simply wanted me to know that you saw it or maybe you hit the button out of habit when you scrolled through your newsfeed.
When I see someone has "liked" the content I posted, I have no idea what the person is thinking about it because all they do is hit the button and move on, without leaving a comment! If they hit the sad face, red angry face or the laughing face buttons, I get it. Though I like to see people's thoughts about what's been posted. Don't get me wrong! I always appreciate it that someone actually saw it and reacted to it in some way.
Whoever had the idea of creating such buttons or emojis in the first place clearly understand that we cannot see each other's faces or body languages and we cannot hear their tones in their voices. So why not just make the emojis and buttons? Just push the thumb-up button and get it done and over with, right? Besides, so many of us think all the animals, objects or emoji icons like hearts and kisses are cute and a lot of fun so we take advantage and play around with them a little.
Just Hit That Button!
Now, after looking at the title of this blog, you're probably wondering, "ok, where is this going? What's with the question about the "Sorry, I'm Busy" button?" As I was just saying, we use a lot of buttons of animals and things and press the emojis to express what we're saying or thinking, which is totally fine! Sometimes, I get the feeling that when we're reading our newsfeeds on Facebook or timelines on Twitter or Instagram, we're just looking through everything really quickly because no one has the time or energy to read everything! We get up in the morning to read our social media platforms, have a cup of coffee but we have school or work so we can't read everything. Then we come home in the evening, exhausted. Again, no one wants to read everything. We have errands to run, things to do and families to care for. So we're whipping through the Facebook newsfeed again and we're tapping the buttons they provided us and leaving a limited amount of comments to content that really matter to us!
So many of us like pushing buttons online to express ourselves or to let others know we saw the posts on social media. But what are you thinking when you do it? Then again, people might not even react at all and you crave for online attention and complain about not having any "likes" or anything at all. Maybe they didn't see your posts? Or were they busy so they just hit a button and did not leave a comment? Maybe we need a "Sorry, I'm busy" button to tell people they have seen the posts but didn't have time to comment or react. Why not? We have a button and emoji for everything else!
I know most parents must wish they had a way to tell their kids something when their kids come up to them about something. Those parents are exhausted after working or hearing the kids fighting and yelling about their needs like, "I need a ride to the mall!" or "Mom, Bobby locked me out of my room again!" Perhaps the parents are trying to take a nap and they keep hearing the kids call them and all they can do is think about that episode from "Family Guy" when Stewie keeps on repeating, "Mom" over and over again! So maybe the parents need a "Sorry, I'm busy" button to push so the kids get the message.
Your boss has conference calls all day, emails to respond to, management issues to settle and more people to hire to make his life easier. You come in his office with a problem with a product that your boss knows you can handle yourself. He doesn't even have time to let you in the door so he wishes he had a "Sorry, I'm busy" button to push!
Words Are Just Words... Aren't They?
A "Like" button or text messages going unanswered means a lot of things. But often when I see someone has liked my posts and texts but I see no responses, I wonder if they even read them and they were just too busy to let me know they did or that they appreciated what they saw and didn't think it was that big of a deal to even consider reacting.
Life is so busy for many of us that we find it easier and even fun to hit the "Like" button before reading the next post on our newsfeeds or the next tweet on our timelines. Many of us may even think nothing more is necessary. More than a "Like" or any reaction isn't usually necessary and definitely not required. However, it would be nice and we would connect more to others if we did more than just that like leaving a comment and showing that we actually care about what was said or shared on social media. I'm sure that before we were connecting online and when we were actually talking face-to-face, talking on the phone, interacting together in the same room offline, we felt more sociable and connected to everyone else physically and emotionally.
When you're socializing online, you miss out on reading people's facial expressions and body languages, their tones in their voices. How do you know when someone online is being sarcastic unless you already know them really well? It can become harder to know when someone is being serious or joking about something and people get easily offended if you say something as a joke and they don't realize it. That's a pretty good way to sabotage your online relationships because you end up losing their trust and eventually, the entire relationship breaks down if not recovered beforehand. Having a good relationship with people online works but it takes more effort to ensure it stays that way!
It isn't unfathomable why people would prefer to communicate online, especially when they're timid about expressing their emotions or they're worried about posting something that might be offensive. No one wants to hear a loud voice yelling at them or see a real angry face! That's why we have to try to learn how to resolve conflicts in civilized ways and be more comfortable with showing our emotions. The problem is, doing it online is more comfortable and easier that way!
Feeling The Spoken Words
Also, being more sociable offline can help us become more empathetic because reading misinformation on social media platforms, like Facebook, is one of the reasons why more people are becoming less empathetic. We also may know that hearing others laughing or seeing smiles is contagious. Do you usually smile or laugh when you see a smiley emoji or a "LOL" emoji? Not likely! Then there's physical contact like hugging and kissing and I think we all know those contacts can make us feel good. I seriously doubt you'd feel the exact same sensation when you read, "Sending you virtual hugs!" or look at the kissing emojis! I'm a sensitive person who appreciate intimacy with people I love and care about and while I appreciate others sending me virtual hugs, I prefer a real one! It's more meaningful to me whenever it is possible. Our bodies react more and our brains release oxytocin, allowing us to feel good, feel less anxiety and it lifts our moods.
So, while we can't always be together because of busy schedules, long distances, discomfort of manifesting our emotions in person, the desire to be anonymous for whatever reason or even when we had to distant ourselves during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, we can do better than just tapping on emojis and clicking the "Like" buttons. We can take the time to let others know how we feel with real words. It shows that we care about others and what they say. If you show that you care, they'll show that they care, too!
You know the saying, "action speaks louder than words"? To me, words speak louder than emojis and "Like" buttons! Words are meaningful when people get together in person to talk and discuss things when we can see each other's faces and hear others' voices. Unfortunately, many people feel that's an invasive way to interact nowadays and it's so much easier to go virtual so that's how we roll now! We feel on edge when talking about opposing viewpoints on politics, religions, the economy or even our own feelings about our personal relationships with people. At the end, we feel like we'll be attacked if someone doesn't agree with us so we might as well not be seen in the same room physically. We read political news stories online and leave comments at the bottom, complaining about this and that and how we wish our government would fix our problems. You want something done? Our politicians do not go around online reading comments so get your local and state's politicians' contact information and directly write to them!
Closing It Up!
Regardless, I feel it's important to go back to being more civilized, empathetic and diplomatic if we want to be content and peaceful with ourselves and with each other. Being so hostile to others doesn't gain anything and you'd find a lot of people like that online because they know they're anonymous and safe! That kind of behavior gets nothing done. If you're online attacking others, you got nothing productive to contribute to.
It's fine to hang around your devices pushing buttons and emojis all day. Seeing those cute little turtles or hearts are fun to find on social media. It just doesn't get our messages across very well and personally, it leaves me often puzzled as to what you're thinking about what I'm posting. It's difficult to stand up for what you believe in sometimes but more words with expression and tones than just online hearts and faces does go a long way. It's important for people to spend time together offline to discuss, share ideas and feelings without constantly spending time on our phones! It's also important to make time for others, rather than just make time for what we desire. Psychologically, it helps you and everyone else. Otherwise, we might as well create buttons and emojis for everything or just say nothing and hit the "Sorry, I'm busy" button! What will that achieve in our society? On a funny note, we certainly cannot use emojis for serious businesses like Petra did on "Jane The Virgin" when she gave permission to the hospital to remove her mother from life support!
NOTE: I wanted to thank everyone who has been reading my blogs. Your support has been appreciated! If you enjoyed this one, too, please feel free to share this!
