Living with etiquette

People have varying points of view about texting. For some, texting is a very useful tool which doesn’t require long, drawn-out conversation to get a message across quickly and efficiently. For others, texting is a nuisance, a mindless way to communicate and express an opinion, dwindling away the very form through which we, as a culture, society and human race communicate.

And we have individuals who use texting to rant and rave about topics when a face- to-face conversation would definitely be a more appropriate and suitable form to communicate.

Throw in there those ever so embarrassing incidents when someone inadvertently sends a text message to a person to whom that specific text was not intended. Yikes!

Regardless of any of these scenarios, it all comes down to this: Texting, whether you like it or not, is a form of communication and how or when we choose to use it determines how we are (or will be) portrayed socially.

Sending a simple message (short, concise and to the point), a greeting or a token of thanks, via a text message, is not inappropriate at all. However, sending private information, ranting or shouting about an individual, incident, etc. is a complete inappropriate form of communicating and can be detrimental to a person’s career and/or life. Additionally, texting explicit pictures (sexting), images or comments is another inappropriate form of communication, which definitely can pose a severe problem personally and professionally.

Think of texting as a means to simply speak in a short and concise manner.  If your communication (or text) is in-depth, lengthy or contains private information, then a phone call or face-to-face conversation would be the best form to communicate. All of this kind of reminds me about an old saying … “keep it short and sweet.”