How closely people mirror each other’s style can tell us about chemistry and compatibility. They can help us decode the kind of relationship we are in, or create the one we want to have. Not only do a person’s text messages reveal their psychological traits, but looking at an exchange between two people can also reveal features unique to that pair. Your text messages are the Rosetta Stone of your relationship. Extroverts, for example, use the words “mouth” and “other” more frequently, along with question marks, while neurotics are drawn to words such as “awful,” “though,” and “depressing.” Those high in conscientiousness are more likely to pepper phrases with “completed,” “stupid,” and “boring,” while those open to new experiences favor “folk,” “poetry,” “human,” and “always.”ģ. Word choice, grammar, pronoun usage, punctuation, and emoji selection are secret windows into the mind.Įven single-word analysis can be telling. Research at the intersection of language and psychology, paired with the computational power of data science, has demonstrated that even small samples of text messages can help you detect where a person stands in terms of the Big Five personality factors-or even to identify when someone is depressed. We glean information about their personalities, attachment styles, and more. Using the principles of “thin slicing”-that is to say, recognizing patterns from a small but representative subset of data-we can use text messages to quickly learn about new people entering our lives. A person’s texts messages are peepholes into their psyche. The quality of our relationships is wrapped up in this new language of thumbs, and we are still trying to answer many questions: How quickly should one reply? When is it okay to leave someone on “read”? How much room is there for sarcasm or irony? Should you end sentences with a period, an exclamation mark, or an emoji? Our brains are struggling to catch up to this evolving language. So, semantics and style have to compensate. It lacks many of the nonverbal cues that help people understand one another: eye contact, inflection, facial expression, tone of voice. It exists in the space between spoken language and formal writing, and it’s a language that we are all inventing together as we go along. We search for clues as to how a relationship is progressing in our partner’s texts, obsess over response times, and wonder why the three-dot ellipsis came…and went. We swipe right into a stranger’s life, flirt inside text bubbles, connect intimately over text, and use emojis to convey desire, frustration, and ambivalence. When it comes to modern love, our thumbs do the talking. Nowhere is this truer than in romantic relationships. Texting really took off in 2007 with the proliferation of smartphones, but it has quickly become the main way we communicate with one another. Texting is a relatively new language, but one we all need to be fluent in. Listen to the audio version-read by Winsberg herself-in the Next Big Idea App. Below, Winsberg shares five key insights from her new book, Speaking in Thumbs: A Psychiatrist Decodes Your Relationship Texts So You Don’t Have To.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |