Emojis and stickers, less punctuation, short texts: generation Z’s messaging is different, thoughtful — and with a certain anguish
The reasons why so many young people prefer to send messages rather than make a phone call are summarized by Leonor Rocha. The 18-year-old girl, from Coimbra, explains that the messages “give room to rethink every word and avoid embarrassing or regretful situations“, such as offer greater comfort by “avoiding direct confrontation and immediate response”. Furthermore, he says, the preference is related to a “practical issue”, “there is no need for quiet spaces”.
To send messages, they use the SMS format, other messaging applications and social networks, but, admit the young people contacted by Expresso, It’s the green WhatsApp icon and the red arrow in Instagram direct messages that people most often click onwhen they want to talk to friends.
“I rarely send SMS, only if I know that the person I’m trying to reach doesn’t have internet”, says Lianor Carreira, 18 years old. Instagram and WhatsApp are the “most convenient and simple” applications and, therefore, the ones that university students use most.
“Most young people now have Instagram, so that’s where I talk to most of my friends,” Maria Ferreira, an 18-year-old from Penafiel, also tells Expresso. WhatsApp is, for Sofia Teixeira, 21, beyond “the application that everyone has”, “where there are groups of friends and family”. Lourenço Costa, 22 years old, adds: “it is the best designed application for sending messages, in my opinion”.
