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Why Texting Doesn't Feel the Same

I noticed that in the past month, I started to not really feel as excited after my Cold Turkey block ended to go on messaging services. For those who don't know what Cold Turkey is, Cold Turkey is an application that blocks websites for a given amount of time you set (a week in my case). Before, I would be excited to catch up with my friends who live out of state or in a foreign country. Now, however, it doesn't feel as exciting.
Before I continue, I would like to clarify that I love my friends and cherish them. My decreased level of excitement is because I don't really like using texting services to communicate with my friends anymore. I wonder if this attitude towards texting makes me an outlier among young adults. I definitely believe texting does serve some useful purpose especially if it is a brief message about where your parents are or when someone will arrive. However, I don't think texting is the optimal way to have conversations with other people. Texting is more of an online interaction, not some way to have conversation. After I messaged my friend for more than 30 minutes during Saturday night, I wondered why did I prefer madly typing on the keyboard and staring at my messages instead of having a face to face conversation with my close friend.This period of being mindful about my present experiences and feelings sparked this realization that what I was doing wasn't really human anymore. Texting was no different than sending short texts and interrupting the other person by trying to complete my thought in a full sentence. There was no need to read my friend's facial cues or emotions. I felt kind of embarrassed because it wasn't like I didn't have an alternative such as FaceTime or Zoom. I was choosing something that felt easier and more comfortable.
The main reason I started to develop these thoughts is because of what I learned from Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I read it 3 times in one year and despite the fact I read it 3 times, I still haven't applied all the advice and practices that Cal Newport talks about in the book.
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