Communicating with Teens Through Technology

One story I always bring up when presenting, or coaching is the very embarrassing miscommunication I once had with my Mum.

Being a strong believer in technology, I strongly believed that there is absolutely no way to miscommunicate over technology.

That is until 2 years ago.

The scene:

The guy I really, really, really like is driving me home so I can get changed to go to our friend's birthday party that night.

Just to make sure my Mum's in the loop, I give her a TXT:

To: Mum

From: Eva

Friend drivin me home - need 2 get changd 4 Nicole's bday party - cn he cme up 2 th house wile I get changd?"

About 5 minutes later (my Mum's a slow TXTer)...

To: Eva

From: Mum

Y

Uh, oh

I start freaking out

Why doesn't Mum want him to come to our house?

She never says no to friends.

Why is she asking 'Why'?

Is she suspicious?

To: Mum

From: Eva

Oh, nvm (NeVer Mind) I'll come up by myself

Does Dad not want to see the guy I like?

Wait, how does Mum even know I like this guy?

For all she knows, he might be gay!

Eventually we get to my place, and I run up to get changed.

Mum and Dad seem fine...

Why did they want to know why I wanted to bring a guy home.

I've had friends over before who are guys.

But maybe I didn't like them like that...

But how do they know?

Do they have crush-sensors installed or something?

Aaaaaarrrrghhh!!!

I'm just about to run out the door, and before saying 'bye', I

ask Mum:

Me: "Mum, why did you say no when I TXTd you?"

Mum: "I didn't say no...!"

Me: "Well you asked 'Why' when I asked if he could come in - are you angry or something?"

Mum: "What? I said 'Yes', Eva"

Me: "No - you TXTd the letter 'Y' as in 'Why'"

Mum: "No I said 'Y' as in first letter of the word 'Yes'"

And my heart sinks.

I've been stressing over literally NOTHING for the past half an hour!

TXT-TIPS

To make sure you never get into the miscommunication pickle with the teens in your life, there's a few tips below that can save time and stress (and miscommunication) between the two of you.

Set your phone to predictive TXT

Offer the teen to do the same (when TXTing you at least, because usually teens use so much abbreviation that the T9 Predictive Text Option is useless to them).

The Predictive Text option can be found in the 'Settings' or 'Message Options' Folder in your Menu on your cell phone.

Basically, you can write a word only pressing the number with the corresponding letter you want once.

For example to TXT the word 'be' you will need to press this combination on your phone: '2233'. Predictive TXT will guess the word for you, so all you need to press is '23' and 99% of the time it will come up with the word you need. With longer words, for example 'love', predictive means you just need to press '5683' and it's done! Otherwise, you'll have to press twice as many numbers...'55566688833' to get the word 'love'.

Pretend You're Spies, and Decide on a code

My Dad hates TXTing. In fact, he wishes we could go back to the days when home phones had cords attached to them. But when he needed to pick up my brother and I when we were at school, or sport practice, we had decided on a spot where he would park, and as soon as he got there, he would send my brother or I the letter

'A' to our cell phone. If he was late, if he was parked on the other side, or if he was going to be half an hour late, we had one letter codes for all those things. If most of your TXTing is for very similar, specific information exchanged, decide on that code - easier for everyone! :)

Ask a Teen

My favourite one! Not sure how to TXT? How to change message settings? How to check your Inbox? What does 'lmao' stand for? Ask a teen! No seriously - put it to practice - it's even better than how successful theory makes it out to be!

This article was all about miscommunication with teens, and how to break free of it using today's technology that you can't hide from! Applicable not only to communication through TXT, but through phone, social networking, and other ways.

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