Archive for November 24th, 2009

The Merits of Texting

When I first starting seeing people in crowds staring down into their phones and thumbing out messages to their friends, it always struck me as an odd behavior. You’re using a device invented for the most convenient form of communication known to man – immediate speech communication – to awkwardly spell out conversations on a tiny screen with 10 keys using crude abbreviations.

Part of the confusion for me was seeing people opt for a cell phone’s more obscure features over it’s primary function, and the other part was seeing communication reduced to emoticons and terrible new acronyms. LOL! How R U IRL? It all just feels like a major step backward for human communication. In 1806 we’d be hand writing eloquent letters to one another using proper cursive, grammar and punctuation. Two hundred years later, we’re butchering fragmented phrases and incomplete thoughts into tiny devices. It just feels like we’re a century away from grunting and howling at each other.

Call me a cynic, but the structure of English language serves a purpose. If we’re given years of instruction to learn it and maturity produces articulate adults, moving away from this feels like regression.

Shoe on the other foot

Maybe I didn’t hang out in the right circles. Maybe I don’t have “friends”. Whatever you want to nitpick, I’ve never really traded text with someone until recently. Our friend / nanny has had to let us know on a few occasions “Hey, I’ve gotta run to the store with the kids really quickly” or “traffic’s bad – we’ll be there soon.” So, she sent it to our phones, and it finally made sense.

I was so wrapped up with the vapid conversations I saw conducted over text that I’d missed just how convenient it was. No small talk, no filler converation, as direct as humanly possible. “I require X- do you have it available?” “What time will you be ready?” Sharp, pointed communications that cut right to the message or question. I like it.

Of course, if I wasn’t using my work Blackberry, there’d be no way I’d be willing to thumb it out on an 10 digit pad. That’s nuts in my mind.