When it comes to texting, we all have our own personal bugbears. Personally, I can’t stand a thumbs-up emoji. To me, it reads as passive aggressive but usually it’s just an older relative acknowledging what I’ve said.
For other people, though, it actually goes a bit deeper in terms of language.
According to a new study published by the American Psychological Association, those who choose brevity when gabbing over text could be accidentally insulting the person on the receiving end of their messages.
The texting habit that comes off as rude
If you’re a big fan of a ‘lol’, ‘brb’ or even an ‘ikr’, you may be signalling to people that you’re not actually interested in what they have to say.
I know, these were all the rage once upon a time.
“A lack of perceived effort could be detrimental to interpersonal connections when texting,” the Stanford University authors wrote in the study.
Lead researcher David Fang, a doctoral student at Stanford University expanded on this saying: “We often tailor the effort we put into conversations to match the significance of the relationship. In some cases, it makes sense to invest less effort and accept being perceived as less sincere, like quickly texting with a delivery driver.
“Our findings are especially relevant when we want to appear more sincere and strengthen social ties, such as at the beginning of a relationship or when we need to make a good impression.”
The study analysed conversations from 37 countries and more than 5,300 texters. Researchers studied the behaviour of message receivers on dating apps and chatrooms in conversations with and without abbreviations.
Sadly for those of us who like to appear laidback when we’re texting (even if we’re sweating our way through every word), using abbreviations doesn’t really convey that at-all and instead, we’re just coming off as insincere.
Omg.