You’ve probably found yourself in this situation before: you spend 10 minutes writing a long and rather complicated message. You explain a complex idea, tell a story, or simply share something important that can’t be summed up in a few words. You send it and wait for a reply that shows the same level of effort or, at least, interest. The minutes pass, you get bored, and suddenly the screen lights up with a reply: “OK.” If you’re lucky, it’s accompanied by a thumbs-up emoji.
If this has ever happened to you and you ended up frustrated, or at least quite angry and silent, don’t worry, you’re not alone. If you were looking for a connection through text messages on your cell phone, your conversation partner probably doesn’t realize how much you have invested emotionally in that conversation. Extreme brevity is so cutting that it often makes you stop trying to get them interested in the relationship. We may seem sensitive, but digital communication and linguistics experts support this idea: if you receive a short reply, it carries enormous emotional weight… and a secret language.
Linguistic efficiency
You are probably aware of the differences between spoken and written language: we often communicate much more informally when we are talking face to face than when we have to write a corporate email or a letter to that conservative great-aunt of ours. However, instant messaging on our cell phones brings two worlds together: the absence of tone of voice, gestures, and facial expressions (no matter how many emojis we use), along with the spontaneity of writing to each other in real time.
Face-to-face communication requires extra effort—known as linguistic inefficiency. This is not a bad thing, but it does require more effort: we use more words, we make sure to use a warm tone, and we gesticulate to a greater or lesser degree (depending on whether we have Italian ancestry or not). However, in a chat, the dynamic is completely reversed. There, efficiency—using as few letters as possible—becomes the norm. This is still seen in Millennials, who were the last generation to have to pay per letter for text messages sent in the early 2000s.
However, this deficiency is easily interpreted as a deliberate lack of effort to be friendly or cordial. If you reduce your effort to a minimum, the message feels cold and distant. Extremely efficient responses, such as “OK,” are easily read as passivity, disinterest, or, in the worst case, hostility. The recipient can’t help but feel that, even though they are receiving the message, the sender has no willpower to participate or follow the conversation properly. This is why the internet is littered with screenshots of someone pouring their heart out, only for the other person to reply with a couple of emojis. The “Dry Dad Texting” meme is real.
Emotional connotations
If you are still a very busy person and cannot give a long reply, you should know that the type of reply can vary greatly depending on the spelling. Within a single word, we can trace an emotional matrix… Even if we remain extremely brief. Here is a ranking of replies from worst to best:
- “K”: this solitary letter is the most feared of all. It is considered by many to be the most hostile or passive-aggressive response, requiring minimal effort and communicating maximum disinterest. There is no greater contempt than being answered with this response.
- “Ok.”: That final period hits the interlocutor’s ego like a dart. If we give such a terse response, but make sure to use formal punctuation (which is often omitted in an informal context such as a chat), we are showing that we are deliberately serious, strict, or irritated.
- “Ok”: this is a more neutral response, and we can accept it as a passive response, although it suggests that the person is simply too busy—perhaps walking down the street or in a meeting—and cannot stop to reply to us. Its longer version, “Okay”, is even friendlier.
- “KK”: seems to be the most neutral way of saying that I received a message and have read it. It’s a cookie-cutter way to respond, but for heaven’s sake, don’t write 3 Ks by mistake!
So now you know, next time you have to respond in a chat, try to convey a little more warmth… You never know whose heart you’re breaking with those short replies.