One day in second grade, I was standing on the playground in my snow boots, plaid jumper and fluffy winter hat. Through tear-filled eyes, I saw  my best friend stomping angrily away. But by the end of the 20-minute recess block, our teacher had sat us down and we talked about why we were fighting. After just a few minutes of talking, everything was fixed and all of our anger was dissolved.

It used to be easy to work out problems, but now, texting has crept into our lives, adding a whole new perspective to “fighting.”

To the average teenager, having a disagreement via text has become as complicated as trying to count each snowflake that falls during a blizzard. Instead of telling your friend why you are angry to his or her face, we now use texting as a way to express our anger. It is easier to string together a few sentences behind a screen than it is to vocalize what we are truly upset about.

The simple fact is texting makes arguing easier, yet it is rarely effective. Arguing and texting combine to create a toxic situation with little hope for optimism. According to a study conducted by Brigham Young University, trying to resolve arguments via text is generally associated with unhappier relationships because less information is conveyed over text than in face-to-face conversations.

By fighting over text, you never know how your tone will be interpreted. Difficult to read and easily misinterpreted,  a lack of tone can allow a reasonable comment to escalate into an ill-judged attack if one party misconstrues it. The miscommunications and assumptions about what is being said will pile on top of each other, confusing the receiver and adding false interpretations into the mix.

When fighting behind a screen, almost nothing is ever truly resolved. By not talking face-to-face, you’re avoiding the topic rather than facing it head on, using texting as a way to talk about the issue at hand because it is easier to have time to think and plan out what you’re going to say next. But, the fastest way to escalate a fight is to conduct it over a medium that doesn’t allow for tone, like texting.

Texting has made many everyday tasks and quick conversations easier, but fights are not meant to occur via text. By using texting as a way to settle disagreements, we are refusing to solve the problem in an appropriate manner.

Even an 8-year-old knows an argument is worth more than a text.