Texting, the rise and fall of modern relationships

Texting has become a popular form of communication, whether it be to talk with a family member about their day, to catch up with an old friend or to be essential in a relationship."(Texting) eliminates the face-to-face (aspect), you don't get to see body language . 80 percent of communication is through body language and we're trying to read other people's faces and body language and trying to understand (people)," said Mary Horton, a psychology professor. "So, you eliminate that whole thing and a lot of miscommunications can occur."

Horton also feels that a relationship solely based on communication via cellphones is an inferior relationship.

"To some degrees, when you're forced to (text) it's a good thing, but when you have the ability to talk to somebody face-to-face but instead you text them, you have to ask yourself 'Why are you doing this instead of talking to them?'

"So, in that case it would be putting up some sort of a barrier," Horton added on relationship dynamics.

It is estimated that 2011 is going to be the highest ranked year for the number of text messages sent with an average of 7 trillion messages.

"I think (texting) keeps people from having a normal relationship," said creative writing major Jessica Ingoglia. "When (people) talk to each other through texting, you don't have the eye contact, the body language and all of that so you don't really know what that person's thinking."

Ingoglia also feels that people can lie more easily over texting and when couples get into fights, they can shut their phones off.

"I actually got rid of texting in a relationship that I had. I dated a guy for like three years, and after like two years I just got rid of texting because we just fought so much through text and I think it totally destroyed our relationship.

"But when I got rid of texting it really helped us." Ingoglia said.

However, John Molina, a creative writing major feels that texting itself cannot destroy a relationship but the people using the phones can.

"I think it's with the people who are in the relationship screwing up via texting as opposed to texting itself messing (the relationship) up. Like you can give somebody a gun and they can either be a policeman or they can be a bank robber," Molina said.

Anthony Ochoa, also a creative writing major, feels similarly to Molina on texting and relationships.

"I was in a long distance relationship for a while and all we could do was text and talk on the phone. Of course it's a strain not being able to talk to each other face-to-face," Ochoa said.

A number of books have been written about the communication between men and women. Horton feels that texting and emailing make these problems worse.

"Some people say it makes you not as smart because you do impulsive things, texting is impulsive. You are not thinking twice before you hit that send button .