The most tactless way to hurt someone is with written words, no voice, and no inflection, easily misconstrued. Things written in anger make the writer feel justified and powerful, control of the words helps them over look how out of control they are in the situation. Never have rash actions resulted in jubilant effect, World War Two and Romeo and Juliet should come to mind to prove the point.
Email is impersonal and is designed to be extensions of the work setting. There is nothing romantic about reading the text a screen, it takes no effort for someone to plunk of a few keys and send someone a paragraph full of misspelled nonsense.
Texting is worse and is degrading to the worlds vocabulary to replace an adjective with a :). There are so many other forms of speech. If texting is necessary it would be much more appropriate to actually type out the thoughts and not use some atrocious and juvenile short hand form.
Even if the intent is not to be cold when handing over a letter it is still a coward’s response. It is the easiest form of declaration and makes it simple to make the writer feel accomplished while not mustering the courage to face the person. But it is a double edges sword, a verbal communication is more personal and yet a written response will last much longer. The letter or saved email is embarrassing proof of the foolishness and reminds the writer that they are not brave enough to voice their adamant ideas.
The power of the written word is only as strong as the vocabulary. Emotion takes a backseat to grammar and punctuation, the flow of speech is garbled if there is a misspelling in the middle of the paragraph. Speaking is braver, more foolhardy but somehow more satisfying. A long misspelled rant is blasted off to a lover who was receiving love poems copied off of websites weeks ago. Long gone are the romantic days of calling on a sweetheart with a horse drawn carriage, now an impersonal “Hey” texted at one in the morning is the equivalent to a long distance phone call. Even then there was not as much effort picking up a phone as seeing another human being and tangibility.
Technology makes things simpler and removes the human element to courtship, to the heartbreak and allows us to take a step away from inconvenient emotions. Humans are not designed to be solitary and hole themselves away from the world; there should be no such thing as being too busy for companionship. Yes texting is simpler, and definitely emails cut down of postage stamps and are much more sufficient. But there is no such thing that can replace the thrill of opening a door and seeing them. We need to see other people, we as humans should have relationships that are not dependent on technology. And what happens once the feelings are over, will the same notes be saved into a file and repeated again to the next conquest? Will the sayings and phrases stored away and reused again after a dust off?
Love poems can be copied of the internet and slipped into a locker. Angry break up clips from movies can be emailed from YouTube. No creativity or even effort just access to technology that makes things simpler. If this continues will the human aspect and the human condition stay or will it fall apart and we shall just exist forever floating around in megabytes?