While texting is an irrefutable form of interaction in any relationship, more texting doesn’t mean better communication and closeness. Texting, like all other forms of expression, has its share of pros and cons.
The biggest advantage of texting is that it helps us fine-tune replies and overcome our inhibitions since we’re essentially hiding behind a screen. We can say things we wouldn’t otherwise say in real life. The worst disadvantage of texting is that it encourages laziness and emotional illiteracy.
For effective communication in your relationship, knowing both the advantages and disadvantages of texting is important. You should know how to make texts work for you rather than becoming a slave to bad texting habits.
Advantages Of Texting In A Relationship
You cannot eliminate or ignore texting completely since it is a major part of our expression in other areas outside our relationship.
It has several advantages when used in moderation and in the right way.
1. Quick Show Of Affection
You can quickly show affection to your partner over a text at any time during the day.
Well-placed texts during their busy routine can make them skip everything for a moment and only think about you.
A quick ‘I love you’ or ‘Thinking about you’ can do wonders, especially when they’re having a bad day and need comfort.
Such texts serve to strengthen your relationship.
Showing concern by checking in on your partner quickly over a text is a subtle way of showing how much they mean to you and that you really care about them.
2. Fast Communication
Want to send an urgent message about forgetting to feed the dog or losing the house keys? No worries!
Texts are an awesome way to communicate quickly and even fill in for each other if and when needed.
Whether it is about forgotten chores or emergencies, sending your loved one a quick text is a sure shot way to minimize any damages.
Further, it gives you the much-needed support and comfort of knowing that someone is there for you.
You can even let the other person know about any change in dinner plans or about reaching home late before they end up wasting time waiting for you.
However, how kindly they respond to last-minute changes is a separate matter altogether.
3. Allows Talking When Calls Aren’t Possible
Texts allow you to be in contact with a loved one in situations where you cannot risk calling them.
It could be when you are in a meeting with a boring presentation going on or you are attending a class that’s trying its best to put you to sleep.
With voice calls over the internet, this is less of a problem now, but earlier, texts were the only way to stay in touch during international travel if you didn’t want your phone bill burning your bank.
Thus, texts are our savior when handling situations where a gap in the conversation seems inevitable.
4. You Can Fine-Tune Your Replies
Texts as a medium of conversation give you ample time to rethink what you are sending across.
You can fine-tune your replies to your heart’s content and choose only the best ones.
There is a lot of time on your hands to take the conversation in any direction you want without the need for being spontaneous and quick-witted.
Your conversations need not be dry anymore if you think you aren’t too interesting a person in real life. Treat texts as your practice ground to hold fun conversations.
Text messages even allow you to save face when you’re at your wit’s end over what to say.
You can simply choose to reply later and apologize for being ‘busy’ when you finally get back to the conversation.
5. Maintaining Connection When At A Distance
Couples in long-distance relationships may find it hard to find time for calls if they have a hectic schedule.
Even at night, you might be too exhausted to hold a proper conversation and doze off as soon as you hit the bed.
Thus, throughout the day, you can talk to your partner to your heart’s content.
With the possibility of including media, throwing in a few pictures of yourself, and a couple of videos of anything you might be doing, you have the perfect opportunity to make the rather bland texts exponentially interesting.
Voice notes are also an awesome option that almost feels synonymous with calling.
TABLE: Digital vs In-person Interaction In Relationships
| Relationship Type | Primary Mode Of Communication | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Long distance | In-person | 6.5% |
| Digital + In-person | 7.6% | |
| Digital | 85.9% | |
| Close distance | In-person | 37.9% |
| Digital + In-person | 18.1% | |
| Digital | 44% | |
| Live-in | In-person | 37.7% |
| Digital + In-person | 17% | |
| Digital | 45.3% | |
| Non live-in | In-person | 14.9% |
| Digital + In-person | 13.7% | |
| Digital | 71.4% |
6. Written Record Of Information
Texts are also a great way to avoid factual miscommunication, especially when trying to pass on important information.
Your dinner plans have fewer chances of being ruined due to ‘hearing’ the time incorrectly instead of what you intended to convey.
The need for correctness becomes all-important when you’re trying to set an important date or trying to send your partner your location in case of an emergency.
If a conflict occurs due to a misunderstanding, both of you can refer to the text in question.
It is something extremely hard to do if the communication was purely verbal and wasn’t recorded.
7. Higher Frequency Of Interaction
Texts allow you to initiate and finish as many conversations as you want. Five calls a day might sound too much but interestingly, five texts a day doesn’t to most couples.
You can practically have a fair idea of what’s going around your partner without even being near them if their texts are frequently updating you.
You can even have parallel topics running in the same conversation and still not be confused as long as you’re quoting the correct one and replying to it.
Several platforms have that functionality by default now. Try doing that over voice or video calls, and you’ll have a mess on your plate.
8. Encourages Overcoming Inhibitions
Through texts, you can say things you’d otherwise be too shy to express in real life.
They are a great way to let you overcome your inhibitions and speak your heart out.
Many people aren’t able to express themselves quite well, at least initially, in their relationships.
There are a ton of emotions they experience while speaking to their partner, and sometimes there is a sudden rush of nervousness which makes them incoherent.
This is also true not only for romantic situations but also when there is a disagreement over something.
Now, one should not look to solve an argument over text, but texts do allow you to add in things later on which you might have missed earlier.
9. Can Be A Medium Of Escape
If you’re having a bad day, a quick text to let your partner know can bring in a ton of comfort when they pamper you to no end.
The conversation does allow you to take your mind off things for a bit and serves as a medium of escape from the drudging reality.
And, of course, it always feels better to text a romantic partner in these situations rather than a friend or family.
Perhaps this is why breakups hurt the most because this is a void nobody else can fill.
Text conversations in your dark times not only bring you closer to your partner at that moment but are also an awesome read to reminisce and realize the value of your partner in happier times.
10. Supplement Physical Intimacy
Erotic texts and arousing pictures, videos are a great way to supplement your physical intimacy outside the bedroom.
Dropping naughty texts throughout the day can make the experience at night quite surreal. These texts are a great way to build upon the anticipation.
They make your partner feel desired and give them a mind-blowing climax when you finally do to them what you had mentioned in your texts.
However, ensure that your partner is in a conducive environment to receive those texts.
You do not want a picture of you in your underwear to be seen by the entire office staff when your partner is delivering a presentation to the client.
11. Forces You To Use Language Correctly
Texts force you to use the correct grammar, phrasing, sentence structure, spelling and avoid illiterate expressions, which serve as attraction killers if done wrong.
Proper and refined use of language is classy and a turn-on, and you should put some effort into it.
You do not need to be the next Shakespeare, but texts which seem like a five-year-old has written them certainly give your partner a hard time.
You’ll have the chance to hold the maximum number of text conversations with your romantic partner compared to other people.
Why not use the interaction to improve your comprehension and expression, which will also serve you in real-life interactions?
Disadvantages Of Texting In A Relationship
Don’t make texting the primary form of communication in your relationship.
Things start going downhill if either of you starts finding comfort behind the cold screen instead of each other’s warm presence.
1. Proof Of Communication
When things go downhill with your partner, texts can serve as devastating proofs, which can sometimes even be twisted according to someone’s whims and fancies.
Think about breakups and divorces. Separations and legal battles get ugly, and texts, pictures, and videos are often dug up from the past to prove a point.
If you think your partner won’t do something like that to you, perhaps they won’t, but an attorney or a well-wisher might encourage them to go down that route.
Thus, it is important to rethink your texts even when you are in the most romantic relationship that has ever existed. Don’t text things that you might regret later.
2. Missing Non-verbal Cues
Perhaps the biggest problem with texts is the lack of non-verbal cues, which make the interaction so much more challenging when compared to face-to-face conversations.
Neither you can see the face or reaction of the person while texting, nor you can gauge their tone of voice.
Both hold immense significance in any interaction as only 25% of our conversation is what we actually say.
The rest is based upon our tone, facial expressions, and body language.
There is an increased chance of miscommunication while texting, especially when trying to be goofy or humorous. It simply doesn’t translate well.
3. Cannot Replace A Traditional Verbal Conversation
You cannot expect texts to replace a traditional conversation, especially in a romantic relationship.
The feeling of holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes, feeling each other’s warmth is something texts just cannot provide.
In case of a fight, you need a traditional conversation to resolve it properly.
Texts just force people to come up with pre-emptive and hollow apologies, and the other partner always feels that there was no closure.
They never feel that you two reached a successful resolution. The reconciliation doesn’t seem proper and doesn’t give any happiness.
Thus, there is an increased dissatisfaction with the relationship.
4. Over Texting Degrades Relationship Depth
A healthy relationship also stems from a healthy balance in conversation types.
Suppose you are continually texting your partner throughout the day, not giving them a chance to breathe and texting is your sole way of communicating.
In that case, your relationship will go downhill really fast.
When you text too much to the tune of hundreds of texts a day, the behavior begins to seem quite controlling.
It even seems like you’re literally stalking your partner to some extent. Over texting makes you seem needy and dependent, which kills all the attraction.
Gradually, your partner begins to disconnect from you emotionally because they have their own life, and thankfully it doesn’t revolve only around you.
5. Instincts Remain Hidden
The primary instincts or the person’s real nature remain hidden to a large extent when communicating through texts.
Why? Because you have so much time to edit your response and fine-tune your replies, as mentioned earlier.
A spontaneous reply or a witty comeback you might not be able to conjure quickly enough in a real-life scenario can easily be produced while texting.
A quick Google search or asking a friend will load your arsenal with lots of options.
Also, real-life does not allow you to take back what you said, but you can easily edit a text, type something else, delete it again and send something entirely different.
Thus, the true essence of a person becomes quite hard to figure out when you only depend on texts.
6. Texts Make You Emotionally Illiterate
Texts are often left on read, which is the real-life equivalent of not saying anything or rather turning your back and walking away from a conversation.
It is often due to not being able to think of a reply immediately, and people forget all about it later on. But to the other person, it feels rude.
Many of us also intentionally ignore the text and ‘ghost’ the person by delaying a reply as much as possible.
Text messages are also misinterpreted, especially during fights between couples, which only escalates the situation.
Thus, texts make you emotionally illiterate to a large extent using the screen barrier between you and your partner and through the various options the ease of reply brings at your disposal.
7. Encourage Laziness
Texts are also notorious for making people lazy.
The more they become dependent on texts as a form of communication, the lower the effort they tend to put into the actual conversation.
One-word replies become increasingly common, and the lines are often a barely understandable, fragmented version of a proper sentence.
Happy occasions like birthdays are wished over texts, and worst of all, even condolences are conveyed as a gesture of mere formality.
This is plain wrong. No amount of emojis or exclamation marks can convey emotion as strongly as the gesture of going to meet the person.
The next in line but still not as strong is the option to call them. You can well imagine the havoc these lazy habits can wreak on your relationship.
8. Decreased Interaction Quality
It’s so much easier to lie over texts and show what you aren’t that the quality of interaction decreases.
Facing a person or calling them still makes it challenging to lie to them due to the involvement of tonal dynamics and sometimes out of pure guilt.
But texts are so much more convenient. Do not want to help your partner out with the chores tonight?
Just cook up a text about the all-important, urgent meeting with a client your boss has dropped like a bomb on your head.
While doing so may give you a sense of escape from your responsibilities, you are damaging your relationship big time.
First and foremost, you risk getting caught and decreasing your value in the eyes of your partner.
Lying over texts will become a habit, and it will only be a matter of when you’re exposed, not if.
Secondly, think about the million-dollar opportunity you just missed to get close to your partner.
Sharing responsibilities is a known trick to make someone feel closer to you and increase attraction.
9. Venting Through Monologues
Venting your heart out is another common texting behavior in a relationship.
People tend to type paragraphs and paragraphs of text, hoping to say everything they want to in one go.
These monologues are the only way to go on and on without letting the other person speak or interrupt their chain of thoughts.
In reality, they want to impose their idea of correctness on the other person and shove it down their throat.
Of course, they won’t be able to do so without being interjected or called out over unreasonable points in real life.
Just like many people resort to raising their voice in an argument to shut the other person down when they do not have logical arguments, over texts, they have the option to type out lengthy monologues.
To them, it is the best way to avoid a confrontation and still get their point across. If only they knew how wrong they were.
10. Time Gaps
Texts come with unavoidable time gaps.
When you’re talking to your partner over a call or rather meeting them in person, the conversation just flows naturally without any gaps.
Why? Because all their attention is on you. But text conversations are usually interrupted by the plethora of things going on around us.
We might be crossing a road, have an urgent task assigned to us or have a visitor at home.
Little things like these, most of which are so trivial yet so important and require our immediate attention, put the text conversation in the backseat.
Thus, it is foolish to discuss anything important related to your relationship over texts.
Your partner might not be that open to listening to what you have to say by the time you find the time to reply.
11. Increased Isolation And Alienation
If your relationship is going through a rough patch and you’ve become habitual to texts to the extent where you can’t express yourself well enough over a call or a meeting, your paradise is going to be in trouble.
When going through a prolonged fight, texts further isolate and alienate the warring couple since they lack the warmth of human interaction.
Sometimes, just being around each other is enough to melt both the hearts, whereas there might be nothing but a cold reaction over a text.
You cannot hug your partner over text, and you cannot hold their hand while you promise to be a better person henceforth.
Thus, resolving fights becomes an even bigger problem since it is not helping you but rather making things worse.
Conclusion
Text messages are a great way to add some flare to your relationship when used in moderation and at the right time.
But do not expect them to replace the more traditional means of interaction.
No technology has been able to replace the warmth of human touch and perhaps won’t be able to do so in the near future.
Just use texts to convey trivial information.
But for the major things related to your relationship, always stick to talking it out face to face or at least get on a video or voice call.