Do you do any texting on your phone? What about your kids? Do they text? I have to admit I'm conflicted about it.On the one side, it's an abbreviated phone call. Before texting you might call up friend to find out what time they're coming over. You have to go through the whole "Hi. How're you?" "I'm fine. How're you?" "Doing good." You know, all that polite small talk before you get around to saying what you called for. "What time are we meeting tonight?" With texting, you just send a message: "wht time 2nite?" Saves a lot of time.
Bt there's also a downside. In fact, there's several. First off, you end up throwing out the window everything you ever learned about punctuation and grammar. That may not be much to you, but it drives me absolutely nuts. If you read a note from most teenagers, you have to really struggle to decipher what they're trying to say.
You can also kiss spelling good bye. Vowels are almost nonexistent, and almost all words are abbreviated. When I was teaching high school English, I made a point on the first of informing my students that texting-type abbreviations and spelling would not cut it in my classroom.
Another drawback is the fact that most teenagers seem to think that texting is an acceptable activity in any situation: church, school, while talking to someone, while doing homework. It's rude.
One of the biggest problems though is accountability. Our kids are allowed email, but my husband and I have access to everything coming in and going out of their account. They're allowed to talk to friends on the phone, but they can't be off in a room by themselves to do so. It's just a matter of accountability. You're much less likely to say or write something you shouldn't when you know someone else can see it.
But texting is a whole different animal. There's no way to keep track of all the messages going back and forth. Messages are deleted easily.
Besides, whose thumbs need that much of a workout?
What about you? Can you take it or leave it or are your thumbs permanently attached to your cellphone keypad?
I never text while in the States. With the phone plans we have there I didn´t see a point.
ReplyDeletebut here is a different story, it really is a lot cheaper especially if you just need to say something short or just trying to let someone know you are thinking about them.
I do not use the short cut for the little messages, it drives me crazy and can´t understand half of it anyway. We are getting so lazy... even in our conversations
I text on occasion, but not often. Though it may be convenient in some situations, I would rather actually talk to the person. I agree that many people are rude or inappropriate with their texting, whether it be when they are texting (i.e. in church) or what they are texting. I also hate trying to decipher the "text code".
ReplyDeleteI text when necessary, but am pretty bad at it. One friend of ours even remarked to my daughter, "I can tell when your mom responds to a text. It takes 20 minutes to get a reply!" By the way, my daughter can do it in two, and she doesn't even have a cell phone!! Of course, one of my problems is the text lingo. I don't mind reading it, but can't stand to use it. To use a quote from Gone With the Wind, "It ain't fitting, it just ain't fitting!"
ReplyDeleteHowever, use of lingo aside, too many people are addicted to this form of communication. It is such a dumb-downed way to communicate. But, then again, since the invention of the telephone, we don't write beautiful flowing letters either. Overall, I like the convenience of texting my hubby a quick "need to know" message if he is in a meeting. But let's face it, most folks text because they can! Personally, I wish people would just give me a call! It won't take me 20 minutes to answer the phone, although it may take me more than 20 to hang up (if I like you)!!