Starting a relationship, telling someone that you love them, cancelling arrangements, breaking up with a girlfriend; a set of incredibly difficult scenarios which can now be avoided thanks to the wonderful development of the mobile phone!

The way that mobile phones have affected conversation struck me in a rather unfortunate incident, well, perhaps a rather stupid and poorly thought out one anyway. I am quite a sarcastic, occassionally witty person who doesn't take life too seriously. My girlfriend on the other hand is quite the polar opposite which is perhaps why we go well together. At the start of our relationship we used to be on the phone to each other a lot, having a nice chat in what I guess you would call the 'getting to know you stage.' However, for me this soon became a bit tedious as I really didn't have time to speak on the phone so regularly so instead I started to send text messages and this is where the problems began.

She sent me a text message one day asking what I was upto. In my usual sarcastic way, I replied saying that 'I'm with my other woman just now can I speak to you later' (more like spk 2 u l8er actually). Now, when we would converse she would obviously know I was joking through the tone of my voice, however, this simple message led to days of interrogation as to who 'she' was and so on and so forth. The text message destroyed my ability to be sarcastic to my girlfriend! This is just one instance that I have noticed where mobile phone affect conversation.

I'm sure everyone has been at a pub or bar and the person they are with has taken out their mobile phone and started playing on it. How rude. You have to sit there quietly whilst they play on their phone waiting for them to cease. By the time they have you just don't know what to say. This is even worse on a date when you think they are probably talking to someone about you. It is quite a sorry state of affairs when people would rather play on their phone their talk to their friends.

Mobile phones just make it easy to avoid conversation. People would rather send 30 text messages to a friend than give them a call that would probably last a minute. Mobile phones simply avoid any confrontation. How easy is it to cancel a night out via text message than actually ringing the person? If you send a text they won't pressure you, there are no answers back and if they try to ring you afterwards then there is the option just to not answer the phone. Fantastic.

So, although the mobile phone is without a doubt a wonderful tool, it has most definitely damaged the art of conversation.

Learn more about this author, Marc Steel.
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