Does a simple "k" send you reeling? Would you rather put your phone in water than end a text with a period? Are you prone to dropping walls of text in the group chat? Does the thumbs up emoji epically throw you off?
If you've ever found yourself seething over your loved ones' text messaging style, or being criticized for yours, you're not alone.
Texting is an efficient way to communicate when you're not able to have a proper phone call, or simply don't want to. But despite its convenience, it's easy to get frustrated when others communicate via text message in a vastly different way than you might.
Wondering what your own text messaging style is? We're breaking down four of the most common texting personalities and offering up TODAY's Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager's takes on the debate.
What are the types of texters?
We all have our own love language and communication style, so it makes sense that everyone has their own unique texting style.
In general, texters typically fall into one of the following four categories, but it's always possible to create your own texting personality.
- Paragraph texters: This one's a phenomenon that the Huffington Post recently described and includes people who tend to send lengthy blocks of text in their messages. Paragraph texting is a useful vehicle for getting all your thoughts out, but can be annoying for people who prefer to receive short messages.
- Dry texters: Vogue reported on this text messaging style earlier this year and noted that "dry texting" refers to people who tend to reply to messages with one or a few words. They regularly write in shorthand and can come off as disinterested to paragraph texters.
- Emoji-obsessed texters: These texters simply ❤️ emojis and use them to express how they're feeling. When they're angry, you're likely to receive a short and sweet 😤 instead of a lengthy response, and they're much more likely to type 🤣 than LOL.
- Rapid fire texters: TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager described this text messaging style on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna on Friday, noting that these communicators tend to send multiple short texts in a row (stream of consciousness style).
Which type of texter are you?
While contemplating the different types of texters, Hoda and Jenna shared their own texting personalities on air on Friday. When Hoda said paragraph text messages are "too long," Jenna fessed up that she's often guilty of sending them.
"I’m afraid that I’m a long texter," she said.
"No," Hoda replied.
Jenna went on to describe another texting habit of hers that "really irritates people."
"I'm a rapid, bullet texter where it's like, 'Where are you? What time should we go?'" she said.
"Oh, all in different ones," Hoda replied.
"Yeah. But what would you prefer: a novella where you really have to (search for) the questions or just a bullet, bullet, bullet?" Jenna asked.
Hoda presented a third option for her co-host and described how she would approach this situation.
"I think just, 'Hey, where are you? What time are you coming?' send as opposed to, 'Hi,' (text message notification). 'Where are you?' (text message notification). Cause some people have ding, ding, ding," she said.
Jenna then suggested that people should simply turn off the sound notifications to avoid the issue altogether.
"But some people have (vibrating notifications). It's still annoying. So I think you do it all in one (message)," Hoda said.
Still, Jenna wasn't entirely convinced.
"Yeah, but here's the problem. I'm not gonna appease the people that keep their alerts on. That's their problem. I'm gonna write what I need to write in my own succinct (way)," she said.
When Hoda made a vibrating noise once again, Jenna held firm to her position and said, "They need to turn off that vibrate. That's their problem."
Hoda was curious to know how people would even know that they got a text message if they had turned off notifications.
"So then they should have nothing? No, but you have to know," she said.
"You don't have your buzz on (do you)?" Jenna asked.
"My vibrate's on," Hoda said.
Jenna was surprised and said, "Always?! So every time you get some sort of message, it vibrates?"
When Hoda said, "Yes," Jenna replied with, "Oh not me, girl."
"So you have (it on) silent?" Hoda wondered.
"(It's on) silent and then I look down and if I have something (I look at it)," Jenna explained.
"Every now and then," Hoda said.
"Nothing needs to be that (important)," Jenna said.