It lacks many of the nonverbal cues that help people understand one another: eye contact, inflection, facial expression, tone of voice. It exists in the space between spoken language and formal writing, and itвЂ™s a language that we are all inventing together as we go along. We search for clues as to how a relationship is progressing in our partnerвЂ™s texts, obsess over response times, and wonder why the three-dot ellipsis cameвЂ¦and went. We swipe right into a strangerвЂ™s life, flirt inside text bubbles, connect intimately over text, and use emojis to convey desire, frustration, and ambivalence. When it comes to modern love, our thumbs do the talking. Nowhere is this truer than in romantic relationships. Texting really took off in 2007 with the proliferation of smartphones, but it has quickly become the main way we communicate with one another.

Texting is a relatively new language, but one we all need to be fluent in. Listen to the audio version-read by Winsberg herself-in the Next Big Idea App. Below, Winsberg shares five key insights from her new book, Speaking in Thumbs: A Psychiatrist Decodes Your Relationship Texts So You DonвЂ™t Have To.

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