Analyzing the Text

For some reason, I find texting to be the ideal form of communication for my particular brand of social ineptitude roughly 90 percent of the time. It carries the immediacy of a phone call, a gentle prodding ring instantly in the recipient's pocket, and yet it is less demanding, allowing the aforementioned recipient to reply at their leisure. Plus, one can communicate effectively without the whole "conversation" nonsense that you have to go through before you can get to the meat of why you are bothering them in the first place.

A few notes on style: under no circumstances should a word be replaced with a number or intentionally misspelled. 160 characters is more than enough to communicate most ideas, though some creative editing may be necessary at times. The omission of some punctuation may be acceptable if the meaning can still be clearly ascertained. At times, shorter synonyms may have to be substituted and intensifiers dropped altogether, but all but the most complex ideas can easily be communicated in plain English (or whatever language you may be texting in) within the space limitations without stooping to the level of asinine acronyms and numeral abuse. These limitations demand that the author be concise, reducing their message to a haiku-like level of simplicity.

As always, when lacking tonal and gestural cues, great care must be taken when interpreting the intended emotion. Far better to grant a potentially sarcastic comment the benefit of the doubt and assume that its author bears you no ill will than to read too much into a statement and end up feeling insulted. Composing a text that is intended to be read as sarcastic is virtually the only time that the emoticon is an acceptable tool for communication, and even then, a simple :) will suffice, none of this other garglemesh you see around the less sophisticated corners of the internet.

Of course, there are occasions when a text message simply will not do. Things that require an immediate response, more complex cues as to the speaker's tone, and the rare occasions when communication becomes a desirable end in and of itself... these are better dealt with via a phone call.