03/16/2026
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how different communication feels now compared to years ago.
There was a time when most of our communication happened through landlines. If you wanted to talk to someone, you called them. You heard their voice, their tone, their pauses, their laughter. Your brain received all the signals it needed to understand what was being said. If someone wasn't home - and you were lucky enough to be able to - you left a message and waited for that return call.
Or we wrote letters.
You took time to think about what you wanted to say, wrote it down, sent it off, and waited. Communication had space in it. Patience in it.
Now most of our communication happens through text.
And text removes so much of what the human brain naturally relies on to understand each other.
There’s no tone of voice.
No facial expression.
No body language.
Instead, we have things like typing indicators, read receipts, online statuses, and short messages that can be interpreted in ten different ways depending on the moment.
Our brains are left trying to fill in the missing pieces.
Someone reads your message but doesn’t respond right away.
Someone’s active but hasn’t replied.
A message sounds short or abrupt, but maybe that wasn’t the intention at all.
The brain doesn’t like missing information, so it starts trying to interpret what might be happening.
And to be clear — our technology can be incredible when it’s used in healthy ways. It allows us to stay connected with people across distance, share ideas, and communicate instantly.
But with all of the uncertainty built into digital communication, something else quietly enters the equation as well: the current state of our own nervous system.
👉 How we interpret what we see online is often filtered through the state we’re sitting in at that moment.
If someone is already feeling regulated and grounded, a delayed reply might simply feel like “they’re busy.”
👉 But if someone’s nervous system is already carrying stress, overwhelm, or past experiences of disconnection, the exact same situation can be interpreted very differently.
The message itself didn’t change — but the state of the system interpreting it did.
There’s another layer to this that we don’t often think about as well.
The devices we use to communicate are also constantly exposing us to artificial blue light. Our nervous systems evolved around natural cycles of sunlight and darkness, yet many of us are now looking into bright screens late into the evening. This type of light exposure can quietly disrupt our natural rhythms and signal the brain to stay alert when the body would normally be winding down.
So while technology can absolutely be a powerful tool, it’s also worth recognizing that both the way we communicate through it and the physical exposure to it can influence the state of our nervous system.
Years ago communication was slower, but it was often clearer.
You heard someone’s voice.
You saw their expression.
You understood the feeling behind the words.
Sometimes I think our nervous systems actually miss that. Mine certainly does. Our nervous systems were designed for connection we can hear, see, and feel — not just read on a screen.
