With the commercial advent of the Internet and mobile phones in the late 1990’s, instant messaging apps have achieved increasing prevalence in our society. However, while some believe that they allow us to communicate better, I agree with those who feel that they have harmed our interpersonal communication.
On the one hand, it could be argue that being able to send messaging instantly between smartphones has advanced our communication in certain respects. Those who support instant messaging say that the greatest benefit of instant messaging is its cost, with most apps allowing messages to be sent for free when connected to Wi-Fi. Consequently,people are able to send a much higher volume of messages today than in the past. Moreover, instant messaging is said to allow people to remain contactable at all times as it is a silent form of communication. If your phone rings in a lecture hall or theater, it is impossible to answer, but you can still send and receive texts without causing a disturbance.
However, I believe that there are more arguments to suggest that instant messaging has negatively impacted our communication. One issue is that people tend to favor writing short texts over real face-to-face conversations.Although it may be possible to carry out a conversation in messaging from alone, I would argue that the quality of this conversation would be far lower that one conducted in person. Even worse, short written messages can easily be misconducted and, as a result, real meaning may be lost or twisted. However, in my opinion, the most damaging aspect of instant messaging is the impact it is having on our written skills. Texts use mind-boggling combinations of letters and numbers to convey meaning, and these abbreviations are having detrimental impact on the language skills of young people today, who are often unable to spell or form grammatically correct sentences.
In conclusion, although it is undeniable that instant messaging is a cheap way to communicate, it has led to a whole generation being less able to express themselves clearly. Therefore, on balance, I believe that apps like Viber and WhatsApp do not represent an advance in communication but hindrance.