Of course, chatting has more or less become a way of life for many of us. As a matter of fact, it won’t be farfetched to say that there are lots of us that can’t go a day without chatting. That is just how far the world has come, and we are embracing it with open arms. Chatting is a form of medium on its own, it is a world set apart and it seems to have its own set of rules that do not apply to the rest of the online space. Chatting can be fluid and it can be rigid, it all depends on those that are actually involved in the chatting. The internet made the world a global village, and thanks to chatting, it got even smaller. Chatting breaks multitudes of barriers that are usually between people. And everyone has the ability to be free and vocal because they only have to physically interact with their devices. I believe I have been chatting since chatting actually became a thing. Right from the days of 2go and Facebook and then subsequently when Whatsapp started. And with the advent of emojis and stickers, chatting was made even more fun and enjoyable for everyone that was involved. As it stands now, there are only a few people that do not chat. Even old men and women have Whatsapp accounts or Facebook accounts. And there is no way you can have an active Whatsapp account and you won’t be chatting. What then is it for? Chatting has become an integral part of our lives and therefore it has come to stay. Many of us are addicted to it, we do it now so often that sometimes when we do not do it we would feel the effects on our bodies. As for me, there are upsides and downsides to this chatting of a thing. And I have experienced them both. To me, one of the good it has done is the ability to get information fast. If you are a student in a higher institution, then you would very well know the value of being online as often as possible. Because news travels so fast that if you are caught unawares there can be dire consequences. From groupchats to personal DMs, we receive new information all the time and we make use of them to the best of our ability to make ourselves better. On the other hand, it has also had adverse effects. And one of them I have come to notice is that it affects our social life. I have seen people that are great at holding conversations in chats, but once you meet in person, they really have no idea what to do. Many people do not really enjoy going out anymore to visit friends because they can chat and gist in their DMs. You can be indoors for the entire day but you would be keeping correspondence with people scattered all over the world. This aspect of social media has eliminated a lot of things that used to be so much fun for a lot of us. But then, that particular disadvantage is also an advantage. It is all about perspective. One more adverse effect it has on people is when it comes to spelling. When most people chat, they abbreviate most of their words. And many of them become so used to that style of writing that it bleeds into their physical life as well. They write like class assignments like that, use it for examinations and letters. Yes, these things happen! I was on the verge of getting carried away like this, but I had to stop myself. And the best way I did that was to stop abbreviating my words. When chatting, I write words in full. Instead of writing words like “lyf”, “xup”, and “awva”… I will write them correctly like “life”, “what’s up”, and “how far”. But then, this is not the only issue with chatting. Thanks to auto-correct, we have also seen that many of us do not really know how to spell anymore. Because as we start the word, the algorithm takes over and suggests the rest, and if we get it wrong it will fix it for us. When making use of our devices we might not notice it, but it would become glaring when we have to write things physically, as in with pen and paper. That is when we would realize we didn’t know spelling as well as we had thought we did. But what am I saying? That is life for you. This is an evolution and the best thing to do is to get onboard. You can’t ever fight evolution, you will always lose. You just have to figure out a way to adapt and do so in a way that you do not lose your soul in the process. Like I said before, chatting has come to stay. It is not going anywhere! There are good sides to it and there are bad sides to it, it is all a matter of perspective. We have to be intentional about what we want out of it, we have to be clear about the lines we would not cross. So that no matter how much we make use of it, no matter how regular or constant it is, we would always know that we are in charge and we are not addicted. Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below, I would love to know what you are thinking. Till we meet in the next post. This post is inspired by the second topic of this week which is Chatting On Social Media. Feel free to take part. Borderimage credit: @deimage.
August De Richelieu
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