I Don't Want to Text Any More

Can I call you?

(illustration by Catskills Wizard Steven Weinberg)

I don’t want to text any more. Yes, I realize the utility of being able to dash off a line or two, mostly in the form of emoji or code to ask my husband to get more dish soap or coffee or to ask my mom friends if they can pick my kid up from school so I can finish a chapter of my book. I get that texting makes life easier.

But it is also making me miserable. In too many cases it has replaced valuable conversations with friends and family members and I think it is breaking my brain a little bit. I know phone calls can seem tedious and annoying, much like jury duty or morning sex. But LIKE jury duty and morning sex you are usually pretty into them once you get started. I miss hearing my friends voices. I miss tone and context and actual laughter that isn’t a cartoon of someone laughing. What if one day we forget what actual laughter sounds like because we only read fake laughter?

Psychotherapist Maggie MulQueen wrote about the pitfalls of texting for NBC News:

As a psychotherapist, I see this phenomenon almost daily, along with the unintended consequences it causes. Patients often read me text messages during therapy sessions in hopes that I can decipher them, since without facial cues and tone of voice, it can be challenging to understand the intention of the message.

Worse, it encourages passive — or more often passive-aggressive — behavior, what I call “hit and runs.” Typing on a screen invites impulsive responses. Absent the ability to see the reflection of pain or hurt on someone’s face, it’s easy for people to pound out anger or meanness. You don’t risk interruption or need to take a breath, but what may serve one person as a chance to clear the air often ends up overwhelming the recipient.

At root, texting is lazy, and our relationships suffer when we don’t invest in them. A “Happy Birthday!” text — even with cake and champagne emojis — will never bring the same smile as a card in the mail or a phone call. Such actions take time and planning.

I was about to text my good friend and constant collaborator Glynnis MacNicol this morning when I thought, “fuck it…I don’t want to type.” And so I called instead. Glynnis almost always answers when I call, even if she is on the subway, sometimes even when she IS on the subway which is always an adventure. Glynnis is sick of texting too.

Glyn and I are making a podcast together so we communicate a lot. Our podcast producer Emily is 27. Any time any one of us calls her she gets VERY nervous and is worried someone has died. Why else would we be CALLING????? That just makes us call her more which could be construed as a toxic work environment by a certain generation and I can imagine the complaints to HR (but they kept calling me on the phone and I had to talk to them!).

(Emily would prefer that us old-heads stop calling her)

The other problem with texting is that I pick up my phone to text and then open three other useless apps and mindlessly scroll through them and lose at least 15 minutes of my life.

So Glynnis and I decided to take on a no texting challenge. Here’s the plan: