Why you should think twice before using 'thx' and 'k' in your texts

Clipped messages may seem efficient, but consider the effect on the recipient.

- David Fang

My brother's text messages can read like fragments of an ancient code: "hru", "wyd", "plz" - truncated, cryptic and never quite satisfying to receive. I'll often find myself second-guessing whether "gr8" means actual excitement or whether it's a perfunctory nod.

This oddity has nagged at me for years, so I eventually embarked upon a series of studies with fellow researchers Sam Maglio and Yiran Zhang. I wanted to know whether these clipped missives might undermine genuine dialogue, exploring the unspoken signals behind digital shorthand.

As we gathered data, surveyed people and set up experiments, it became clear that those tiny shortcuts - sometimes hailed as a hallmark of efficient communication - undermine relationships instead of simplifying them.

SHORT WORDS LEAD TO FEELING SHORT-CHANGED Most people type "ty" and "brb" - for "thank you" and "be right back" - without batting an eye.

In a survey we conducted of 150 American texters aged 18 to 65, 90.1 per cent reported regularly using abbreviations in their daily messages, and 84.2 per cent believed these shortcuts had either a positive effect or no meaningful impact on how the messages were perceived by the recipients.

But our findings suggest the mere inclusion of abbreviations, although seemingly benign, starts feeling like a brush-off. In other words, whenever a texter chops words down to their bare consonants, recipients sense a lack of effort, which causes them to disengage. It's a subtle but pervasive phenomenon that most people don't intuit.

We started with controlled laboratory tests, presenting 1,170 participants aged 15 to 80 with one of two near-identical text exchanges: one set sprinkled with abbreviations, the other fully spelt out. In every single scenario, participants rated the abbreviating sender as less sincere and far less worthy of a reply. The deeper we dug, the more consistent the pattern became.