Times of India, April 8th, 2018
Remember when teachers scolded us for talking too much in class? When “talkative” was a part of our report cards sent to our parents at the end of the year? Well, if talking was an object, it would be a relic right now. Tales of talking would probably make for good fairytales. Because if recent studies are to be believed, this generation is falling silent.
Youngsters simply don’t like talking anymore. Texting or using social media is fine. Even an pair of earphones will do, as long as speaking to someone can be avoided. Here’s what a survey from British communications regulator Ofcom revealed. About 15 per cent of 16-24-year-olds don’t want to use their phone to speak to people. They would rather use instant messengers. The same research also said that teenagers would even message people sitting in the same room, at times, next to each other; but not talk to them.
Youngsters simply don’t like talking anymore. Texting or using social media is fine. Even an pair of earphones will do, as long as speaking to someone can be avoided. Here’s what a survey from British communications regulator Ofcom revealed. About 15 per cent of 16-24-year-olds don’t want to use their phone to speak to people. They would rather use instant messengers. The same research also said that teenagers would even message people sitting in the same room, at times, next to each other; but not talk to them.
Why we have talking anxiety...
A part of this problem could be because we do not have any shared experience of sound in our digital world. Says Sunaina Mathew, engineer, “We have moved into a noiseless and soundless world, where we hear only our voices and the sound through our earphones buzzing.”
There is a private world of sounds in public spaces. For example, we can sit anywhere, even amid people, but just listen to our favourite playlist. Earlier, we were familiar and accustomed to sounds around us – people talking, the radio playing, children screaming, dogs barking, clang of kitchen utensils, etc. Now, the only sound we hear is the one we choose to, through our earphones. We go to silent discos, listen to music on earphones, have conversations on earphones, listen to movies with our headphones on; we have internalised our relationship with sound and made it a very private affair.
Etiquette expert Pria Warrick says for this generation the most natural and casual communication mode is texting, and phone calls are viewed as an ordeal. “Social media have changed how we communicate privately. There was a time when everyone talked for hours on the landline, and that was considered as a relaxation technique at the end of the day — between friends, lovers, parents-children — but now we think twice about violating someone’s space by calling them on the phone,” she says.
There was also a time when birthdays were special occasions when you expected people to call you. But even that has become a textual affair these days. Maira Khanna, 36, doctor, didn’t get any calls on her birthday, but was flooded with text messages. “I missed the sound of people’s voices and the laughter along with the wishes,” she rues. MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, one of the leading researchers looking into the effects of texting on interpersonal relationships, feels the onslaught of information and time spent with screens is another reason why people are talking less.
Emotional fallout
Psychologist Rachna Khanna Singh tries to throw some light on this phenomenal change in human behaviour in this century that, she says, will have far-reaching consequences on our emotional stratum. “We are conditioned to go for what’s easy because the innumerable choices and distractions in our lives — social media interactions throughout the day, work correspondence, traffic noise et al — have made our minds exhausted and we are seeking silence with a vengeance now,” she says.
On public transport, we have our earphones on, lest someone should look our way, smile, or worse... talk to us. While out socialising, we are more bothered about interacting with people on the virtual world from our smartphones than the ones right in front of us. Digital expert Chetan Deshpande finds this quite funny and gives an interesting pointer. He says, “Being used to smartphones and social media for a while now, we also love editing our thoughts and expressions. Thanks to courtesy readily-available dictionaries and emojis, we have become accustomed to reducing our mistakes, editing every thought and expression, which isn’t possible while talking on the phone. This freaks people out.”
It’s also a scientific fact that anxious people become tongue tied. Now, think about an anxiety-ridden generation, multi-tasking 24x7. No wonder even the thought of picking up a phone to talk has become a terror.
Sound stats
About 15 per cent of 16-24-year-olds don’t want to use their phones to speak to people. They’d rather text. In TIME magazine’s mobility poll, 32 per cent of all respondents said they’d rather communicate by text than phone, even with people they know quite well. This is truer still in the workplace, where communication is between colleagues who are often not friends.
A part of this problem could be because we do not have any shared experience of sound in our digital world. Says Sunaina Mathew, engineer, “We have moved into a noiseless and soundless world, where we hear only our voices and the sound through our earphones buzzing.”
There is a private world of sounds in public spaces. For example, we can sit anywhere, even amid people, but just listen to our favourite playlist. Earlier, we were familiar and accustomed to sounds around us – people talking, the radio playing, children screaming, dogs barking, clang of kitchen utensils, etc. Now, the only sound we hear is the one we choose to, through our earphones. We go to silent discos, listen to music on earphones, have conversations on earphones, listen to movies with our headphones on; we have internalised our relationship with sound and made it a very private affair.
Etiquette expert Pria Warrick says for this generation the most natural and casual communication mode is texting, and phone calls are viewed as an ordeal. “Social media have changed how we communicate privately. There was a time when everyone talked for hours on the landline, and that was considered as a relaxation technique at the end of the day — between friends, lovers, parents-children — but now we think twice about violating someone’s space by calling them on the phone,” she says.
There was also a time when birthdays were special occasions when you expected people to call you. But even that has become a textual affair these days. Maira Khanna, 36, doctor, didn’t get any calls on her birthday, but was flooded with text messages. “I missed the sound of people’s voices and the laughter along with the wishes,” she rues. MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, one of the leading researchers looking into the effects of texting on interpersonal relationships, feels the onslaught of information and time spent with screens is another reason why people are talking less.
Emotional fallout
Psychologist Rachna Khanna Singh tries to throw some light on this phenomenal change in human behaviour in this century that, she says, will have far-reaching consequences on our emotional stratum. “We are conditioned to go for what’s easy because the innumerable choices and distractions in our lives — social media interactions throughout the day, work correspondence, traffic noise et al — have made our minds exhausted and we are seeking silence with a vengeance now,” she says.
On public transport, we have our earphones on, lest someone should look our way, smile, or worse... talk to us. While out socialising, we are more bothered about interacting with people on the virtual world from our smartphones than the ones right in front of us. Digital expert Chetan Deshpande finds this quite funny and gives an interesting pointer. He says, “Being used to smartphones and social media for a while now, we also love editing our thoughts and expressions. Thanks to courtesy readily-available dictionaries and emojis, we have become accustomed to reducing our mistakes, editing every thought and expression, which isn’t possible while talking on the phone. This freaks people out.”
It’s also a scientific fact that anxious people become tongue tied. Now, think about an anxiety-ridden generation, multi-tasking 24x7. No wonder even the thought of picking up a phone to talk has become a terror.
Sound stats
About 15 per cent of 16-24-year-olds don’t want to use their phones to speak to people. They’d rather text. In TIME magazine’s mobility poll, 32 per cent of all respondents said they’d rather communicate by text than phone, even with people they know quite well. This is truer still in the workplace, where communication is between colleagues who are often not friends.
2 comments:
Los nativos digitales viven permanentemente conectados, pero una llamada de teléfono les genera ansiedad. Usan Whatsapp, se exponen en Instagram, comparten su vida en redes, pero algo pasa cuando les suena el móvil. Prefieren utilizar sistemas de comunicación asíncronos (notas de voz). De hecho, para ellos recibir una llamada resulta una intromisión en su vida cotidiana, que no saben cuánto tiempo les va a consumir. Este sistema de comunicación indirecta les hace perder la oportunidad de practicar la comunicación directa, o sincrónica, que se hace cara a cara. Si las personas no practicamos esa comunicación directa, en tiempo real, lo más lógico es que perdamos habilidades, y cuantas menos habilidades tengamos, más ansiedad anticipatoria de tener que comunicarnos en directo padeceremos. Se ha perdido la costumbre de hablar a viva voz, lo que ha hecho a muchas personas más antisociales, pues les cuesta más hablar o expresarse, ya sea en privado o en sociedad.
Mobile phone technology and the rise of social media have made rude behaviour much more prevalent in today's world.
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