I know this 16-year-old girl who dumped her boyfriend for breaking their Snapchat streak. At first glance, this might seem like a very superficial, ridiculous, Gen Z move. However, this girl and her boyfriend know that this is something they do (that takes less than 3 seconds) to show each other that they thought of them. At least once a day, they send each other a picture of their ear or half their face and that lets the other person know that even if they are busy, they are on their mind. This form of affection is beyond many who feel that the younger generation spend far too much time on their phones and do not form meaningful connections. This is not entirely just. They have methods of communicating genuine emotions, it just looks different from handwriting each other love notes (or whatever my parents did). There is a virtual language that they speak fluently. They know when a text had a bitchy undertone or if their partner is mad. No, this shouldn’t apply to those of us (like my dad) who signs off every text message “Love you, Dad.” it is only relevant if both parties speak the language. So, when this girl saw that her boyfriend couldn’t be bothered to take a couple seconds out of his day to keep their “streak” going, it conveyed to her that he was not as engaged in their relationship as she had hoped and he ought to know better because he speaks this language.
The relevance of this story, of course, comes from the fact that now almost all of our communication is virtual. The world has taken a challenging turn for those who thrive on face-to-face conversations. With the exception of some who have been deemed essential, you are probably stuck at home, maybe working from home, maybe out of a job altogether, either way you have found yourself seeing a lot fewer people. As I’ve written previously written, this has presented an opportunity to reach out to loved ones or people you’ve fallen out of touch with. I have been at home for 51 days. I have called and heard from a lot of wonderful people. Some people I messaged about getting in touch, we agreed to do so, but then it never happened. Wouldn’t it be nice to speak a virtual language that told me in our conversation that we were never going to end up chatting? Or to be able to fairly interpret how engaged the other person is in our discussion? Teenagers' prime form of communication hasn’t changed. That’s incredible. Again, I’m not saying this knowledge would be applicable to everyone but it would certainly be helpful right now.
I think that for those like myself who are just stuck at home it is valuable to note if you aren’t getting in touch with those people you always said you would “if only you had the time.” Perhaps you were never going to or you need to ASAP.
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