This post is coming to you a day late, as my husband and I decided to do our screenless day on Sunday (see post here). For the one person who subscribes (thanks babe), I am sorry, I’ll try to plan ahead next time. Today I am reflecting on Cal Newport’s podcast episode #362 The Texting Dilemma that was published on July 21. In this episode, Cal discusses a principle that he touches on in his book Digital Minimalism (that I am currently in the process of re-reading). He talks about how there are many pieces to the idea of smartphone addiction, and social media is just one part of it. Texting is another area of our phones that has increasingly taken over our lives.

Texting started out as a simple way to send a message to someone that you didn’t want to bother with a phone call. However, you had to be careful. Remember character limits and also text send/receive limits? (Fun fact: the Twitter 140 character limit stemmed from the SMS character limit while also having to leave room for your @ handle) I distinctly remember a world of 250 texts sent and received per month otherwise you had to pay extra. This has far been removed from standard practice, and I’m not even sure there is a phone plan out there that does not include unlimited texting. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put a psychological limit on the amount of texting we do. Text messaging was never meant as a way to replace the conversations we were having, but perhaps just to make them a bit simpler, or to let someone know you were on your way.

Cal discusses this in both his book and this podcast episode. It has become common practice to have full blown conversations with people all day. Whether it be friends, family, a group chat, etc. People are in constant connection with each other. And it’s not just younger generations either. This has become such common practice that people are uncomfortable having phone or face to face conversations, even for serious conversations such as resolving a conflict. However, texting has limitations. You can’t perceive a person’s emotions, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. You also are pulled away from your task at hand to engage with your phone. Of course, texting does offer the benefit of convenience. You don’t know what the person on the other end is doing at the current moment, so you wouldn’t want to call and interrupt them, but in reality, texting is no less of a distraction.

How many times have you been focused on something, but then get taken away because you hear your phone go off? I know I am plenty guilty of this. The crazy part is, it takes us over 20 minutes to get fully back on the task we were originally working on before being interrupted. Let me ask another question. How many times have you been having a conversation with someone right in front of you, just to be pulled away by a text message? This is the sad reality of what texting has grown to become. It’s not just social media pulling us to our phones more, it’s also the passive communication that we feel is more important than the active communication happening right in front of us. Another thing Cal points out in the podcast that really stuck with me was when he was talking about how texting in front of your children instills bad habits in them as well. Your kids won’t separate the time you spend on your phone for texting someone from time spent scrolling TikTok. They just associate it as time on your phone, and will in turn think it is okay for them to be constantly engaged with their devices. I found this very interesting and while I do not have children of my own, I think it is a relevant thing parents need to think about.

Cal offers some advice for our texting dilemma and how to combat it. His biggest piece of advice is setting up a focus mode (or whatever Android calls it) that only allows phone calls to come through. Then, you check your texts in batches similar to checking email. I think he talked about how he checks his every hour or so depending on what is going on for the day. He points out that most people trying to text you will not even notice, and if they do, just explain what you are doing and 99% of people will understand. Even more so, some people will start to get in the habit of texting you less and waiting to talk about something either in person or over the phone. He does point out, that there are obvious exceptions to this rule. If you are expecting a text from someone, for example your kid telling you they are done with practice, then you can check more often. He also gives the example of a relative in the hospital and you are in a group text with people giving updates, then that would be another example of having more constant back and forth messaging. However, most texts people receive can wait until the next time they are able to check their device.

I myself have been trying to embrace this practice more. I have been using a focus mode on my phone that blocks all notifications except for phone calls. However, I have it setup to where some notifications can “break through” and notify me using Apple Intelligence and what it thinks might be an important message. I have found it does a surprisingly good job figuring out what is important, but it of course isn’t always perfect. Also, I have turned off all messaging notifications from my Apple Watch. I have found the thing that takes me out of a moment the most is when I receive a message on my watch and I decide to read it. Therefore, all message notifications come through on my phone like the old days. I also have turned off the messages app on my Mac to reduce the distractions even further.

Overall, I greatly agree with what Cal Newport talked about in his podcast episode. I think we need to change the ways in which we look at texting as a medium for communication. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a great thing for us to not have to call someone every time we need something. Imagine having to call because you forgot what time you were meeting a friend for dinner. However, we shouldn’t use texting as a way to replace having that dinner with that friend. Our brains weren’t evolved to have meaningful conversations over a screen. Batch texting has so far been a great practice for me (and my husband even joined in too!). Hopefully you can take a moment to reflect on the ways in which you communicate with the people around you, and see how you can deepen your conversations with them.

If you’d like to listen to the podcast episode discussed in this post, you can find it here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-questions-with-cal-newport/id1515786216?i=1000718291422