The Great American Telecommunication Standoff

There is nothing worse than the conversation on the phone that goes unnecessarily long just to say, "Meet you in five."  It's just a simple phrase that isn't worth a phone call, so we just text it.

There is nothing worse than getting to a restaurant before the other members of your party because the text that said, "Meet you in five," meant five hours, not five minutes.

Telecommunication is a lose-lose situation, but which form of communication is ultimately better?  Talking or texting?

"How will I make the meeting in five minutes if I'm wearing this damn helmet!"

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Reliability
How often does it happen when you are talking on your cell phone and the conversati...star... eakin...up.  Damn, that's a jumbled mess of conversation.  Good luck trying to make sense of that. 

"Cheating?  He said he was breaking up."

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Where phone calls fall short, texts thrive.  Text messages defy the law of dropped reception and do not get broken up in dead zones, but they do fail to send every now and then.  Failed texts are much more easily recovered than a dropped call, especially because they cannot be misunderstood.  Take the following conversation examples:

Bad reception phone call: Let's take...ath...togethe...want...ompare...izes.

Text message: Let's take a math test together.  I also want to compare the answers to the quizzes.

Well, one of these will ruin a friendship and the other will create bonding time.  Okay, so they both can do those, but you see the point?     

"Take a bath together?!?  Hmm...I guess I'm game."

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Text: 1, Talk: 0

Contact Consistency

Have you ever sent a text and received the message, "What are you talking about?"  That's when it dawns on you; you sent it to "Kayla" instead of "Kaylynn."  Smooth move.  Now you made dinner plans with Kayla.

"Oh, that's sweet, but...my name isn't Lisa."

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How often does that happen with phone calls?  It never ends up halfway through the conversation, "Oh, I thought I called Barry.  Sorry Bart."  This is because talking has instant feedback on who you are conversing with.  If the wrong person answers the phone, just hang up.  No harm is done and no information is released; although, they may be offended that you just hung up on them.  Whatever, they'll get over it.

Text: 1, Talk: 1

Emotion
"You did a great job."  This line can be interpreted in a ton of ways, very much depending on the delivery and what words are accentuated.  

"You did a great job."


"You did a great job."


"You did a great job."

The first one implies that only you did satisfactory work.  The second implies that you have done great work in the past, but now it just sucks.  The third is clearly sarcasm, your work sucks.  If these were to be sent via text message, there are no accented words or voice inflection; therefore, misinterpretation is bound to happen.  It is highly likely that M. Night Shyamalan got this text, but it was meant to be taken in the second example.

"No, no, no, I meant stop making movies."

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Speaking on the phone allows you to get those voice inflections and accentuate the needed words, plus you can yell if you're really pissed (much cooler than typing really fast and hard).  There's no way voice messages can be interpreted the wrong way, unless they're talking dirty and you don't realize it, but that can be a two-way street.

"Whip cream and cherries?  I guess I can do that.
Vanilla or chocolate ice cream?"

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Text: 1, Talk: 2

Efficiency
So often in life we are dealing with impatient people who always need to keep up with our location relative to theirs.  It used to be...

"Hello?"
"Hi, how's it going?"
"Good, you?"
"Good."
"That's good.  What's up?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm at home."
"Oh, okay, good."
"Whatever." 

Calls like that really rack up the monthly minutes when a quick text of, "Where are you?" with a reply, "Home," saves so much time that it hurts, if you're under retirement age.

click...click..."b"...click...click...click..."r"...click....click..."b"

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Texting your whereabouts and time of arrival can be solved with a few keystrokes, with, "Be there soon," or, "See you in 5."  You have just avoided an unnecessary conversation and saved a good two minutes.

Text: 2, Talk: 2

Information
A text message is limited to about 160 characters per message, basically just enough to say what you want to eat.  This is where shorthand, or text lingo, comes into play.  The "brb" and "c u l8r" are cleverly designed to best utilize the 160 character limit.  In this case, calling a person is much more effective.  Talking out your plans for the night is much easier than trying to figure it out over text messages.

Let's say you need to show a person something, you could try describing it or you could send them a picture, the latter being more effective.  It's a safe bet to say we've all been in the situation of, "Should I buy it?  It's green and jumps and stuff."  Why not just send a picture?  Problem solved.

"Damn, I'm bringing sexy back."

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Text: 3, Talk: 3

Verdict
So there you have it; a tie.  Each form of communication has its time to shine, it's just a matter of choosing the better way to get your message across because you never know how the recipient will interpret what you are saying.

I had this picture ready for when I referenced e-mail, but I never did.  I like it too much to go to waste...

I couldn't think of which caption was the best, so I'll put them all.
"Ah ha ha, they need more than one cup for that load."
"Wait...there are no lemons at that party!"
"Oh, I thought they meant, 'Here's a goat, see?' Ha, that's awesome."
"Why do they call it tubgir--Well, I guess she's a girl and there is a tub."

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