Data: Texting affecting how we communicate

CHICAGO -- Anna Schiferl was still in bed when she reached for her cellphone and typed a text to her mom on a recent Saturday. Mom was downstairs in the kitchen. The text? Anna wanted cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Soon after, the 13-year-old could hear mom's voice echoing through the house. "Anna," Joanna Schiferl called, "if you want to talk to me, you come downstairs and see me!"

Anna laughs about it now. "I was kind of being lazy," the teen from suburban Chicago concedes. "I know that sounds horrible."

Well, maybe not horrible, but certainly increasingly typical.

Statistics from the Pew Internet & American Life Project show that many people with cellphones prefer texting over a phone call. And the data indicate that the younger you are, the more likely you are to prefer texting.

Some would argue that it's no big deal. What difference should it make how we communicate, as long as we do so?

But many experts say the most successful communicators will, of course, have the ability to do both, talk or text, and know the most appropriate times to use those skills. They fear that more of us are losing our ability to have the traditional face-to-face conversations vital in the workplace and in personal relationships.

"It is an art that's becoming as valuable as good writing," says Janet Sternberg, a linguist and professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.

She's noticed that more students don't look her in the eye and have trouble with the basics of direct conversation -- habits that, she says, will not serve them well as they enter a world where many of their elders still expect an in-person conversation. Many professors now say they rarely see students outside class.

"I sit in my office hours lonely now because if students have a question, they email, often late at night," says Renee Houston, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Puget Sound in Washington state. "And they never call, ever."

Some communication experts say text conversations aren't particularly deep. Therein lies the problem, says Joseph Grenny, co-author of the book "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High."

"The core problem has existed since we've had telephones -- probably since the time of a telegraph," Grenny says. "We loathe having crucial conversations. We are paralyzed and do what we can to avoid them." That applies to any generation, he says. Texting is just the latest way to do that.