In no shit Sherlock news of the day, one third of 8-14 year olds say text and social networking messages are way better for communicating with people than any of that pesky IRL stuff. God, who wants to chat face to face in 2014? SO lame.
We’re with you kids. Here’s a few convos we’d way rather have over text rather than IRL.
'So, I’ve been to the doctor and you should probably get yourself checked…'
Ah that most life-affirming of all text messages to receive; the wonderful realisation that you've gone an contracted a sexually transmitted disease from a realtive stranger. Even worse, it's not even one of the glamourous ones like syphillis, it's just boring old chlamydia. You're such a cliche. It's times like this we thank our lucky stars for the wonderful invention of text messaging which spares us the added embarassment of having to sit and chat over coffee about this with 'Henry from Infernos' (as he's saved in your phone). Having to look Henry in the eye as you slowly recall minute by minute action replays of all the athletics attempts you two engaged in to put a condom on before finally giving up when it snapped and left a hefty bruise on your left boob is one experience that you're mercifully spared of.
'Clean the dishes you disgusting gross human being and grow up too while you’re at it'
Obviously you’re not going to bitch your housemates out in person, that would just be mean. Instead, calmly eat breakfast while they bash around the kitchen creating more mess to add to their already wobbly leaning tower of dishes before heading out the front door to work and hitting ‘send’ on that long rambling Facebook message nagfest about cleanliness and responsibilty that you composed in a fit of rage last night. Luckily, sleeping on the whole thing means you took out that bit where you called her ‘a spoiled brat who’ll never amount to anything’. Ahh perspective you beautiful little thing.
'Stay strong. Here if you need to talk'
All that stuff your mate's going through at the moment? Wow. And you thought having forgotten to Sky+ the first episode of Geordie Shorelast week was the worst thing that ever happened. Seeing as you're completely ill-equipped to deal with giving advice and/or comfort in sitations of such gravity, text messaging is a nice little buffer to stop yourself making a complete and utter plonker out of yourself when you panic and try to relate all her very serious problems to the time you had your hamster in one of those little hamster balls and you accidentally kicked him down the stairs. He died and while that is very sad it's possible your friend might be slightly insulted that you're comparing the two things. Best just to express your concern and availablity to chat through text. No-one actually takes anyone up on that offer IRL do they?
'So proud of you! You've done such a good job!'
Seeing as we’re British and British people are generally known to have the emotional range of a marrow, we'd probably rather someone directed a tirade of abuse at us IRL than a plethora of lovely heartfelt compliments. In fact, thanks to the creeping awkwardness you feel as the compliments session progresses you realise it's actually really rather thoughtless and irritating of the other person to tell you what a great person you are (how fucked up is that right?). Best stick it in a text so you can reply with a nice 'Aw thanks' without showing how much you're dying inside.
'So, I think we should start seeing other people'
Sure in some backwards internet-free places, breaking up with people you've only been seeing for a few weeks over Facebook message is like 'frowned upon' or some shit but ask yourself, really, really which version of a casual break up would you prefer? IRL face to face where you've got to chat about like, 'feelings' and stuff when there weren't actually any there to begin with or via a text message that you can choose to reply to or not. Plus, just in case you are actually a little bit more upset than you should be you can totally save face by not bursting into hysterical tears in front of what was essentially a fuck buddy. Obviously any realtionship over a couple of months requires that you do the breaking up face to face, we're not animals.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.