Relationships are a very important part of everyone lives. Relationships make up our human experience. We have relationships with every person in our lives. In a class called Authentic Relationships, I have been learning about different ways people communicate with electronic devices. Communication is a very important part to everyone lives. If you are unable to communicate you will live a very sheltered life. I have experienced a variety of different types of relationships over the four years of college.
The first relationship I would like to start with is a roommate I have been living with for the past two years, but have known all four years of college. He is a person who lives and dies by his phone. He is a person who always has to have his phone on him all the time. If you were to take his phone from him like we have before, he will get a little tense and upset. It’s very interesting how attached he has been to his phone since I met him. I would be very eager to know how many text messages he actually sends in a month compared to minutes he actually uses. When he has his phone on him it actually gets kind of annoying. My reasoning for this is because he doesn’t turn his phone on vibrating or silent, so when he is texting someone of keeps getting texts it makes a noise when he gets a text. And even better, when the text is sent his phone beeps twice to inform him the text sent. So after a while it can get very annoying with him texting someone. Another feature his new phone has is internet and games, so we thought he was on his phone quiet often before. Now it’s even worse because he has games on it and he can surf the internet. The real question is how he is perceived by others in terms of a “Friend” or “Communication”. The reason I bring this up is because there will be times when I call him to ask him a question or for a favor and he won’t answer. Then a few minutes later I will receive a text from him saying “Hey what’s up”. This really gets to me because if someone calls you, wouldn’t you expect to call them back. But that’s not the case for this roommate. I feel that he has gotten so addicted to his phone; texting is his way of communication. You will very rarely see him make a phone call or receive a phone call, because everyone knows he will respond to a text sooner than he does a phone call.
This brings me to my next point. In regards to conversation with his girlfriend, again it’s always over text. They have arguments, conversations, ect. over the form of texting. You wonder how strong this relationship can really get. Because when you’re brought face to face are you able to talk to each other the same way you do over text. I think not… Over text you can say almost whatever you want, because you’re not getting their reaction in person.
This is where the sender – receiver model comes into play where I read about in “I am a Camera”. In this article in terms of the sender receiver it talks about how the sender and receiver can create an image that you want to be or represent. It is very easy to do this because you are controlling what you say. It can be very confusing on the receiver side because sometime it’s hard to tell what type of message is being sent. Understand what type of mood someone is in can be very difficult to understand. Over text you are unable to get the non-verbal’s the sender is trying to present and you are unable to hear the tone in their voice.
