Why College Students Prefer Texting Over Talking

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College students prefer texting to talking as it grants them control over their messages, allowing them to carefully craft their responses without the pressure of immediate interaction. This preference stems from the desire to reduce vulnerability and manage communication, as texting minimizes the complexity of the information exchanged compared to voice or face-to-face conversations. However, this quest for control compromises the depth of relationships since genuine connection requires vulnerability and the acceptance of risk. Aiming for control leads to thinner relationships, ultimately depriving individuals of the meaningful interactions that fulfill their social needs.

Note: This is a rebroadcast.

In the quiet moments of our lives, we can all sense that our hearts long for something, though we often don't know what that something is. We seek an answer in our phones, and while they can provide some sense of extension and fulfillment — a feeling of magic — the use of technology also comes with significant costs in individual development and interpersonal connection that we typically don't fully understand and consider.

My guest today will unpack what it is we really yearn for, how technology, when misused, can direct us away from the path to fulfilling those yearnings, and how we can find true human flourishing in a world in which so much works against it. His name is Andy Crouch and he's the author of The Life We're Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World. Today on the show we talk about the tradeoffs you make when you seek magic without mastery, and how we can understand our desires better once we understand ourselves as heart, soul, mind, and strength complexes who want to be loved and known. We discuss the difference between interactions that are personal versus personalized, as well as the difference between devices and instruments, and how to use your phone as the latter instead of the former. We end our conversation with why Andy thinks we need to redesign the architecture of our relational lives and create something he calls "households."