translated from Spanish: Expert explained why you don’t have to end relationships by WhatsApp

“One day I was pololoating super happy, my pololo had called me a while ago and I was really in the clouds. A couple of hours later I opened WhatsApp and realized that I was writing, but I would write and delete, write and delete. Until he finally sent the message, ‘We can’t stay together. Please forgive me.’ I was plop.” Cases such as that of kindergarten educator Natalia Castillo (29) are quite common, especially among young people and in times like the current one, when people have more restrictions to see others due to quarantines and curfews. However, experts such as psychologist Dagleys Hargreaves of the Cenap-Cognitive Therapy Center discourage ending Relationships over WhatsApp with great conviction.” There are several authors who argue that in communication, 90% of the message we want to convey we do so through nonverbal language; gestures, posture, distance, tone of voice, look, etc. Imagine that message is written, and without any context. The end result is that whoever receives the message understands what they want to understand and who issues it has no possibility to evaluate the impact it is generating on the other.” As a result, she added, “the communication process loses its effectiveness and can be a source of conflicts that have no basis.” In fact, Hargreaves said that after “crucial” conversations via WhatsApp it’s common to hear – or read-phrases like “I don’t understand why he got mad at me,” “I didn’t tell you that” or “you’re distant.” Something even worse than being “kicked” or “cut” by WhatsApp is what happened to journalist Sebastián Garrido (32), who could not even express his position on it.” Things were wrong. The weasel couldn’t find a way to untangle the matter, I told her to stay away for a while so we could sort out and then see if we were going on or not. The point is that after two or three weeks he notified me that the thing was going no further than thank you very much and pure words of good upbringing. And I’m like, ‘What a mutt? Aren’t you going to talk about it?’ Then: Blocked,” counted the affected person.” It was very distressing because there was no chance of being clear about what we had failed and I had to swallow my replica for ever and ever,” he added. While this involves a step further, it’s also a scenario that is greatly facilitated by instant messaging systems or social networks, so it’s another reason to avoid solving problems or ending relationships in these ways.How to hold on? Sometimes people are very clear that WhatsApp is not the way to have serious conversations, but passions can play a bad trick. So what can a person do when they feel the urge to fix something via WhatsApp? If you can’t wait to see the other person, is it better to make a phone call or video call than to text?” If the subject is urgent or the person is very distressed to not be able to communicate it is much better to make a video call than simply write. It’s not ideal, but at least it allows us to see the other one during that moment. But I emphasize, nothing replaces one face-to-face communication with the other. It is the basis for us to understand each other and grow as a civilization,” she said. Let us remember that in communication nonverbal language is much more powerful than verbal language. Different is to be told, for example, ‘I love you’ by looking you in the eye to be sent through a message,” he added. On what kind of things can be said by messaging systems and which can’t, Hargreaves said that “these applications should be used as means of coordination and not communication. Ideally, it is to write short, very punctual sentences with which you want to transmit something very specific, such as a meeting point, a business hours or general data”.

Original source in Spanish