I can remember a bleak image of my mother setting up a Motorola landline so that we could call her and she could reach out to us whenever she was at work. Having her set it up at home was also exciting, as one always gets when getting a new tech.
Reaching out to our mom meant we could only reach her by voice call.
And sometimes, when I called her, someone from the office answers the phone, asking me to wait while they call my mom over. It was always daunting for me to talk to an unfamiliar voice because it required me to organize my thoughts quickly to respond in an orderly fashion.
Voice calls taught me to say what I mean by using the right tone to convey my message and not to breathe over the phone because it makes the other person on the line uncomfortable.
Even when my mother bought her mobile phone, a Nokia 3310, which always required prepaid cards (oh, how many stacks of cards did we have within a decade), we still talked through the telephone because Mama could not afford to buy us one. There was also no immediate need for us to get our own phones because reaching out to people before mostly revolved around the telephone and face to face interactions.
It was almost always impossible to misunderstand each other during voice calls because one could hear the tone and inflection of the words.
But with the ubiquity of mobile phones and the convenience of text messaging apps, we now contact other people through text by default. And here’s where decontextualization almost always happens. Because in writing, the absence of context which is easily conveyed through spoken words could result in misinterpretations. Interpretations also vary based on the readers state of the heart.
While the speaker’s voice or demeanor influences how her message is received, the same emotions may not be as apparent in text. And when nuances get lost, readers may interpret a message differently than intended, leading to misunderstandings.
jessa 