the communicative device of today sends partial truths. the recipient does not see facial expression, or eye movement to fully grasp what is being typed. hidden meaning (aka sarcasm), circumstance (aka busy with laundry, not intentional avoidance), and word choice is either misconstrued or not even apparent.  dissimilar to telephone calls, which impersonal communication first began, intonation cannot be sent through text messages. we begin to rely on emoticons and quotation marks to receive and convey emotion. the recipient is left to rely on what is being typed, or what is not being typed, and have no choice but to accept them as reality. from a psychological approach of observing this phenomenon, sending text messages can provide a veil of detachment for the sender and may result in expressing either his/ her innermost thoughts, or the complete opposite. in the cyber world, we are stripped of our identity. no one sees our physial appearance, unless we want them to, which makes it convenient for us to reinvent ourselves online.

could it be that the reason why the internet is so addictive to the young generation, men around 40-50s, is because these groups are full of people who are still trying to find themselves, still changing? the housewives who do go online are the ones unsatisfied with the current state of affairs either with their role or with their family, and the ones who don't have their lives evolving around their family? that is a big generalization. it's a theory. don't flame me for a theory.