Texting

This week I am talking about the technology that has shaped our culture over the past ten years. Cell phones have been around since the eighties, but text messaging on the other hand, has only recently become such a global sensation.
I know that my views on texting might make me uncool, but I will do my best to make up for it in other areas.

I like what Jay Leno had to say about texting in his interview with Dakota Fanning:

"It seems to me like the BlackBerry should have come first and then someone goes, wait a minute you don’t have to type anymore you can now talk and the other person can hear you."

Communication has many levels. The optimal form is through engaging in conversation in person. You get visual, verbal, even the physical aspects of what someone is trying to say. When you talk on the phone you loose the visual and physical aspects, but you still hear the inflection of the voice. You take the verbal away and you are pretty much destined for a miscommunication. This applies to blogging as well.

I am horrible at texting. Let's say I get a text that says

"CU at the party Fri"

once I decode the message I would like to text back something like

"I am not going to be able to make it because my parents are coming into town and I will be picking them up from the airport."

I can't say that though, because by the time I get done texting the party would be over so instead my response is

"no"

My other texting gripe is people that try to discretely text while at work, church, or in conversation. I guess they think that if they hold their phone down by their thigh and casually glance at it while typing out responses that no will see them? Wrong! I am sure that teacher's can hear me on this one.

Then there is the texting while driving. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? For my dear friends and loved ones that have done this I apologize, let me rephrase that- Are you kidding me!? Driving while talking on the phone is already questionable, so who thought it would be better to have your hands manipulating buttons, typing and reading, while operating a motorized vehicle. This is an epidemic that is costing people their lives, and that just doesn't make sense to me!

Don't get me wrong, texting is not all bad, and if you are an avid texter, I say more power to ya. I might catch up with the trend some day and 10 years from now I will be the one with the SMS addiction, but by that time the trend will probably have moved on to something more progressive, like Morris Code.