To Text or Not To Text? Dating and Your Mobile Phone

Recently, I read a study by International Telecommunication Union that estimated mobile phone subscriptions increased from 4.6 billion to 5.3 billion from 2009 to 2010, which means about 77 percent of the world’s population has a mobile phone now.  With the staggering increase of people who have mobile phones, our world is more connected than ever.  Phones give us the ability to keep in touch with loved ones who are around the world, or even across the street.  Distance between you and a loved one is no longer a problem; and with mobile phones, you can be on the move and still keep in contact with your friends and family.  Along with calls on your mobile phone, text messaging (also known as short messages service, or SMS) allows people to keep in constant contact, which can create a new form of connectedness with your social network.  But with the increase of the use of these newer forms of communication, what kinds of things can you expect in the dating world?

Imagine you meet someone new, and you think there’s a possibility for something more there, so you exchange numbers.  Who should make the first move in calling the other and starting the adventure of getting to know one another – the man or the woman?  And how should it be done – with a phone call or a text?  A study by Byrne & Findlay (2004) compared how men and women prefer to make a first move.  They found that men were overall more likely to make the first move, and would do so more often by calling than texting, whereas women were more likely to make the first move by sending a text.  However, they also showed that when they did make the first move, women were just as likely as men to send a text message.  This can be seen as men and women both still following the traditional roles in dating, where men should be the pursuers of the women.  In women, the reason they may prefer texting to calling could be just to send a flirtatious message to suggest interest, and reveal that they want to be called.

When it comes to asking the other out on a first date, similar patterns of preference were seen.  Overall, men were more likely to ask women out on a first date, and would more often call than text.  Both men and women were equally unlikely to use a text message as a way of asking someone out.  Again, both men and women seem to hold these traditional roles in dating, where men are pursuing women in asking them out on a date.  However, the fact that men are not more likely to ask women out via text message may suggest that a text may not signify as much formality or desire.  With a telephone call, a man would be risking more and putting himself out there by having that immediate response and having a live dialogue with the woman.

What if I start dating a “texter”?

What if this new person you met is the opposite of the norm, in that they prefer texting over talking on the phone?  What kinds of things can that tell you?  Recent research by Reid & Reid (2007) looked at how social anxiety and loneliness can affect someone’s preference for texting, as well as why they use text messages.  They found that people with higher social anxiety levels were less likely to make phone calls and preferred using text messages, and text messages were used as a tool to present themselves to others and as a means of intimate contact.  Lonely individuals were found to still prefer voice calls over text messages, and saw texting as a less intimate method of communication.   These findings could suggest that the new person you met who prefers texting over calling you may be worried about the impression they’ll be able to make on you, and resort to communicating through an unobtrusive way in which they can carefully plan out what they are going to say to be able to present themselves in the best light possible.  Text messaging also offers a delayed method of communication, in which a socially anxious person will not have the fear of being immediately rejected as if they were talking live on a voice call.

So I shouldn’t text?

Now don’t take it that far.  Don’t think all text messaging is bad.  Text messaging is a good way to send informal, every-day messages between two people or for getting a conversation started.  It’s a great way to keep someone else updated if you’re running late and another way of reinforcing our feeling of connectedness to our social networks.  A good mix of using text messages and voice calls when getting to know someone in a dating situation seems like a great way to go, but if you start relying heavily on texting over voice calls, you may be giving the wrong impression.

Further Reading:

Byrne, R., & Findlay, B. (2004).  Preference for SMS versus telephone calls in initiating romantic relationships.  Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society, 2, 48-61.
Reid DJ, & Reid FJ (2007). Text or talk? Social anxiety, loneliness, and divergent preferences for cell phone use. Cyberpsychology & behavior : the impact of the Internet, multimedia and virtual reality on behavior and society, 10 (3), 424-35 PMID: 17594267

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