‘I’m sick of lots of GIFs’: How digital communication can affect age gap relationships Life style

“I got bored of many gifs and lost touch,” says Eugenio R., a 42-year-old graphic designer who met a 31-year-old man on Instagram. Although their dates went well, problems arose when they started dating. communicate digitally. “When we started talking on WhatsApp, he sent gifs that only I had to decipher. At first I thought it was funny, but after a while the connection got poor and I lost interest,” he recalls.

It’s not just the emojis, gifs, and stickers that reveal a sender’s age, it’s also the way they choose to connect. One of the findings of the research is that each generation approaches communication channels differently. The Silent Generation: Millennial Phone Call StatisticsIt was concluded that 75% of respondents born between 1981 and 1996 saw receiving a phone call as a time-consuming interruption to daily life. Meanwhile, Boomers value phone calls, as do 61% of Gen Z members, according to a study. Uswitch surveyPrefer text WhatsApp messages instead of phone calls.

If these differences did not exist, they would not be so remarkable. age gap relationships According to statistics from dating app Bumble, this is becoming more and more common. A total of 63 per cent of app users do not think age is a determining factor in who they date: 35 per cent of women say they have become less critical of relationships due to age differences, and just over half 70 per cent of men surveyed say they would date someone up to seven years older than them He says they are open to dating. Everything is fine until it’s time to communicate.

don’t call me

Millennials prefer to use asynchronous applications (applications that do not require immediate interaction, such as a phone conversation) because they feel it is a more convenient, less intrusive form of communication. “Although they were not a generation born with tablets in their hands, they focused on productivity and as a result, they learned to manage their time well. Asynchronous communication helps them organize the messages they need to respond to and in what timeline,” Entic Soler, the couple’s psychologist and associate professor at the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, tells EL PAÍS. “This way, they respond more calmly. they can give and think about their answers; This can also happen with voice messages. This creates a lack of confidence in one’s communication skills. “With traditional forms of communication, such as the telephone, you say what you say the first time and it is taken for granted from the very beginning.”

Soler thinks that communication problems that may arise between different members can yes be solved with more communication. “If members of a couple have different relationships with digital communication systems, it is important to reach an agreement,” says Soler. “Given that even silence communicates something, there is a rule of communication that says it is impossible not to communicate. The person on the receiving end of this silence may have a certain perception of it. Depending on how we use systems to communicate, we can encounter misunderstandings, such as one partner writing in paragraphs while the other responds with a single gif. “We need to be open about these differences and lay out best practices for communication, as well as agreeing on which communication channels to use.”

Linguistics and communication expert Miguel Ángel del Corral Domínguez says that in the case of large generational differences, the content of conversations can also play a role, given that members of a relationship may not share the same experiential and cultural references.

“Unless we are talking about an extreme difference in the ages of partners, linguistic differences are usually not overly profound. “Thirty-somethings today use a lot of colloquial language and teenage slang, if not teenage slang, at least when they’re around family members and romantic partners,” he says. In fact, the rise of social media has not led to the formation of a secret language among young people, but to its spread. When a teenage video or phrase goes viral, it can reach people who are two or three times the age of its creator.

‘Squid Game’ without subtitles

Sherry Just Murders in the Building It humorously reflects the great differences that can arise when it comes to communication between different generations. “It’s like I’m watching Squid Game No subtitles,” Steven Martin’s character says after listening to Selena Gómez and Zoe Colletti’s characters talk.

“It’s really interesting to see how different people (of different ages and eras) use language on the internet,” said author Gretchen McCulloch. Because the Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, tells Vox. “There is a misperception that if people use language differently, someone must be right, but this is not true. There is no one right way to use language online. “We can use language differently, and that can actually help us understand each other better.”

He continues: “You can write the way you want to talk, but we need some communication about the ways you express it to avoid communication difficulties and misinterpretations.”

“My boyfriend calls me every day but I never know what to say. Am I going to tell him that I went to the office, had a few scary meetings, and now I’m going to the supermarket? “I don’t understand the craze for talking just for the sake of talking,” says Clara R., a 37-year-old brand manager whose partner is 49. “The few times I call him, it’s for something relatively important, or at least fun, and I ask if it’s okay to call him via WhatsApp first because I hate answering the phone when I’m out drinking with friends, in the middle of dinner, or in class watching Netflix on the couch and watching.” “I have to pause the show to listen to a story from her day that doesn’t impress me at all. And I’ll be honest, I can’t think of many things worse than a video call without prior warning.”

“All the drawbacks of a phone call made worse by video calls“This requires them to show up live, looking at themselves without filters, with all their flaws zoomed in and in full view of the other participants,” says Ferran Lalueza Bosch, professor of information sciences and communications. “Anxiety follows a mathematical model: The higher the perceived threat of wasting time and the lower our perception of our own resources to cope with it, the higher the anticipatory anxiety of the situation.”

“In terms of the use of emoticons and stickers, it is similar to the content itself: it all depends on the degree of trust and familiarity with our interlocutor,” explains Corral Domínguez. “In the case of a couple, this is probably high. However, caution should be exercised if the interlocutor is unaware of our rules, which is common among older people. And it’s not just limited to visuals: consider the use of irony and sarcasm as well.”

Eugenio R sums up: “There’s an obvious generation gap and you try to stay up to date so you don’t fall behind the times or miss what’s going on.” “It ends up being a game that can be a bit confusing because you interpret the sticker one way and the person who sent it to you means it another way.” Although she eventually stopped seeing the 31-year-old, whom she met through social media, she says the young man occasionally sent more GIFs. What does all this mean? Like language itself, this question can give rise to countless interpretations.

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