Caitlin’s boyfriend told her he loved her today for the very first time. There can only be a handful of moments in a relationship more touching and novel. One would imagine such an important event occurring over a romantic dinner, or some other special event, like Valentine’s Day.
In this case, he told her in a text message. And, yes, this is a true story.
The dynamics of modern social interaction are quite different from fifty, even thirty years ago. Today we have cell phones, email, text messages, and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace – the latter site holding more than 106 million members. Today, our ability to communicate with those close to us has never been easier or more efficient.
How, then, can we explain why, according to a 2006 study, people have fewer close friends than their peers did thirty years ago? How can we explain why their network of everyday friends have decreased by a third; and how can we explain why the number of people who said they had no one to talk to about important issues tripled. What is the reason for this growing, widespread disconnect? Why have people’s social networks not only decreased in size, but, more alarmingly, in quality?
The answer, strangely enough, lies in economics.
Thirty years ago the only way to communicate with your immediate social network was either over the phone, or in person. Today we can communicate with others through cell phones, email, instant messaging, social networking sites, and texting. We as a society are deluged with modes of communication, most of them being instantaneous.
The benefits to this communication revolution are obvious: Easier, quicker communication at work increases productivity, especially within large companies. Cell phones free us from the leash of landlines, and allow us to cheaply communicate with others wherever we go. We can talk to, and send pictures to our family members back home over email. If you’re running late to meet a friend, you can send them a quick text message to let them know. Social networking sites let you find old friends, new friends, and interact with people on an entirely new tier of interconnectedness. It has never been easier or cheaper to connect with others.
So what are the downsides, if any, to these new, widespread forms of communications?
That’s where economics comes in. The biggest problem with lowering the cost of communication, which includes time and effort spent communicating, is that this low cost, logically, devalues communication. For example, when water is cheap, people consume it liberally; but when a tax is applied to water usage, people become frugal with their water consumption. So, economically speaking, the “supply” of communication is at an all time high, and logically, the value we place on it is at rock bottom, and this is reflected in our use of communication. When making plans to meet your friends requires no more effort than sending a text, the cost of communication is next to nothing.
Now, since the primary viewpoint of this essay is an economic one, we should examine some economic principles that will help us better measure the costs of communication:
Cost:What is the cost to you of finding a diamond in your backyard? Most people would answer none at all; but the true cost to you is the value of that diamond. If it’s worth three thousand dollars, by not selling it you are losing three thousand dollars that you otherwise would have. This is an important point to remember because the cost of one good is equivalent to the worth of other goods you forgo by consuming that original good.
To demonstrate this principle, let’s look at a situation that’s a bit more common sense, and far more likely. Suppose it’s a warm, sunny Saturday and you would love nothing more than to be lying on the beach, drinking a beer. The problem is that your friend invited you to her birthday party at noon, and you agreed to attend. You value lying on the beach much more than being inside at your friend’s birthday party. To better represent our value for these two options, let’s assign numeric representations of our value for them:
Laying on beach = 10
Friend’s birthday = 4
By going to your friend’s birthday party, you are forgoing, in other words, losing 6 units of value you otherwise would have by going to the beach. It is expensive to you to attend your friend’s birthday party because you are losing value by going. But, let’s suppose the day is rainy instead. In this situation, you value being outside in the rain very little:
Being outside in the rain = 1.
Friend’s birthday = 4.
In this case, you actually gain value by going to your friend’s birthday. The value you placed on going to your friend’s birthday party didn’t change, but the value of your other option did, changing with one you preferred. This is an example of relative price. The actual value you placed on going to your friend’s birthday didn’t change, but its relative price did, thus altering which option you preferred.
To apply this idea to the topic at hand, the previous modes of communicating with others was in-person or over a landline. There really was no substitute; but, with the invention of cell phones, email, and texting, we have now introduced three substitutes for face to face communication. Because these three substitutes have lower costs, which I will demonstrate shortly, we have increased the relative price of in-person communication. Economically speaking, an increase in the price of one good creates an increase in demand for its substitute - in this case, the substitutes being communicating via cell phone, email or texting. Economically, it makes more sense to use the cheaper substitute.
Now, let’s examine the costs involved with these various modes of communication:
In-personThere are many costs associated with communicating in-person. By committing to one set of plans, you forgo anything else you could have done; and when communication is instantaneous and portable, there is almost always a more attractive option available somewhere.
This knowledge of other options devalues the act of committing to just one. In the past you had little ability to know what else was going on without actually being there or hearing about it beforehand. Today we have the ability to be instantly aware of parties, concerts, or whatever your friends are up to at any instant, thus increasing the cost of committing to one plan dramatically. Because your knowledge of other plans has increased, you are consciously forgoing more than previously.
When communicating with others in-person, you must spend time meeting someone and talking with them. We all know that time is money, and has worth. Additionally, if you happen to be talking about unpleasant topics, there is a cost in experiencing empathy for others’ negative emotions. We are social, emotional creatures, and can’t help but empathize with our loved ones. If they are sad, we become sad, and that’s an immediate and visceral cost. All of these reasons make communicating with others in-person a valuable, but costly mode of communicating.
Cell phoneCommunicating with others via cell phone is less costly than doing so in-person. The cell phone allows one to forgo only a minimal amount of time speaking with others because one can do other things while talking. Cell phone conversations have a high value because we are able to converse while taking care of other important tasks simultaneously. The only real cost is losing the ability to speak to people other than who you’re speaking to on the phone, as cashiers everywhere know all too well.
EmailEmail has a lower cost than talking in-person, or on a cell phone. It provides a multi-faceted value, sparing one the costs of in-person communication, while allowing them to formulate their thoughts exactly as they’d like. One can write at their leisure and use less valuable time. Also, if the discussion topic is awkward or difficult, you bypass the negative feelings associated with discussing such things in person. Email also allows one to say what they’d like with little regard for the other person. Email is a series of monologues, and because of this, saves you the effort of replying to someone else’s immediate response. All of these factors give email a high value and a low cost.
Texting It doesn’t get any cheaper than texting. Not only do you bypass seeing or hearing the other person, but you also dispense with spending time meeting them, or even talking to them. One can text anytime, anywhere. The only cost to texting is the time one spends typing the message, and since a large portion of the texting population has mastered the ability pilot two-ton metal missiles while texting, multi-tasking mostly eliminates this cost. Texting saves you a great deal of value, and the costs are nearly non-existent.
We have one problem, though. An economic analysis only works accurately if we are aware of all the costs and benefits involved. People estimate value by weighing an item’s costs and benefits, so we can only accurately estimate a good’s value if we know all of these factors. By being aware of our options’ costs and benefits, we can then compare the value of them.
But, what if we’re not aware of all of a good’s benefits or, worse yet, all of its costs? To estimate the true value of a good, we must know all of the costs involved. Without this info, we are overvaluing an option, which can lead to poor decisions. For instance, we’ve only recently become aware of how high the true cost of consuming Trans Fats is. Now that we know the true costs of Trans Fats, people are altering their consumption of them. To speak to this essay’s topic: are there any hidden costs to the various modes of communication now available to us?
Our biggest problem to answering this question is in measuring our value of the connections formed through communication. Though we can’t quantify such things, we can place relative values on them, ranking their value as high, medium, or low. The value we place on relationships is usually directly proportional to the amount of social and emotional bonds we have formed within that relationship. By quantifying the quality of bonds formed through the various modes of communication examined within this essay, we now have a good basis to measure the value of our relationships.
Upon examination, texting and email clearly form weak bonds because there is little cost to the conversation; thus, little value is invested. Speaking to others face to face, though, and to a lesser extent, talking on a phone, form stronger bonds because these modes have higher costs. The initiator is investing significantly more value in the conversation. Though we might not consciously be aware of it, we do intuitively understand this. To illustrate, one could quite accurately make an ordered list of their immediate friends, rated by closeness, simply by adding up how much time they spend talking to them face to face.
To give a personal example of this, my relationship with the lazy-eyed, goateed sandwich artist at my local Subway is weak. We don’t talk much, and when we do, it’s invariable about sandwiches. I don’t value my relationship with him for many reasons, but at the core it is because we don’t talk much. If I were to have some sort of falling out with him, I wouldn’t be losing a valuable relationship. I can go elsewhere for a sandwich, though finding someone with a lazy eye and a goatee to make me one might be harder. I’ll leave quantifying the value of such things for another time.
At any rate - the bonds I have with my friends are much stronger in comparison to the Sandwich Artist, and hold much more value to me. There is a huge cost to me in losing or harming these relationships because I have spent a lot of time and energy cultivating them. In economic terms, I would be losing the value of my entire “investment” in that person if that friendship is broken.
We’ve already examined the obvious costs and benefits to the various modes of communication available to us today, but are there any less obvious, hidden costs?
First, let’s look at face to face contact. What hidden costs are inherent to this form of communication? Nothing of significance, really. For the most part, what you see is what you get. One invests time, effort, and emotional energy into the recipient. You’re having a dialogue with them that demonstrates that you value them. By speaking to people face to face, we can exchange ideas, clarify points, heal wounds, and otherwise strengthen a relationship.
Next, email and texting, which we’ll lump together as they are similar modes of communication. Do they have any hidden costs? Absolutely.
Before texting and email, people could only interact face to face, or over a landline phone. These are highly personal modes of communication in which one invests many valuable goods, such as time and energy. This investment increases the value of the relationship.
Texting and email, on the other hand, are highly impersonal. One spends next to nothing communicating via these modes, thereby investing little value in the relationship. Whereas a relationship’s value is increased greatly through face to face communication, texting and email increase a relationship’s value little. These modes form no concrete social bonds, and can actually decrease a relationship’s value if the other person takes offense at the impersonal nature of the communication. For instance, if someone in your zip code writes or texts you more than they call or make plans, it’s a good bet they don’t value your relationship highly.
What’s interesting about the costs of texting or email is that they increase as frequency of use increases. No reasonable person would care if their friend sent them a text saying they’ll be 15 minutes late, but if this friend communicated with you frequently via text regarding subjects of an inappropriate social weight, such as breaking plans or revealing bad news, texting actually harms a relationship. The more frequent these types of communications, the more the relationship’s bonds are weakened.
When compared to face to face communication, texting and email have small gains and an indeterminate amount of costs ranging from small to great. To illustrate this mathematically, the cost benefit ratio for texting could be estimated roughly at a potential 3:1, while the cost benefit ratio of face to face communication is heavily skewed towards the benefits, perhaps 2:7. While texting and email can save time, their potential social costs are concerning.
There are few of us that can overlook a good deal, and texting’s low costs, when compared to face to face or a phone call, are hard to resist. If we need to communicate with someone, we are faced with a quick decision: Do I make plans, do I simply call, or do I text? More frequently, people are choosing texting. As I previously illustrated, for these modes, as the frequency of use rises, so do the costs; and as more and more people choose email and texting, the hidden costs increase and accumulate.
Now, after we have examined the true costs and benefits of the various modes of communication available to us today, let us reevaluate our original questions. Why do people have fewer close friends than their peers did thirty years ago? Why has their network of everyday friends decreased by a third? Why has the number of people who reported that they had no one to talk to about important issues tripled? The answer lies in how much we as a society invest in our relationships with others. While it is incorrect to blame the tools at our disposal for the quality of our social bonds, we must still examine what drives us to invest less within our relationships, whether it is because of convenience, or because we value our relationships less.
