Okay, I have to rant a little bit. Its true I have sent a text message or two in my day. But thats probably about all. I think the text message craze is undermining the importance and art of communication. I was perusing the Scroll (school newspaper) today and I came across an article about texting. Allow me to quote a student featured in it: "You can do it in class, in the library, while you're talking to other people, or even in the two seconds it takes your date to get in the car." Automatically I thought to myself, "that would be the last date I would ever go on with that guy." Besides the obvious rudeness of texting while on a date with a girl, why is he just waiting in the car for his date? I think it is very sad that communication with others has been reduced to this. This guy (and it was a male student, a Business major, evidently, but that is another post...) obviously knows how to make those around him feel important. Dave and I have a friend who got dumped via text messaging. Of course, they also got together via text messaging, and most of their relationship consisted of it. Now, I do think texting has its place - but 27 out of 100 students admitted to having 10 or more text conversations a day. A girl featured in the article said, "It's nice ... when you don't really want to talk to someone." I think with the loss of communication came the lost art of common courtesy and compassion. Well, I could go on, but I think I've got it out of my system now...
4 comments:
I heartily agree! People have forgotten how to talk to each other. Too many people have relationships that are based on texts instead of face to face communication, so they don't know how to have real conversations. When I was living in Bountiful, I had a couple of friends who that was basically all we did was text, so we really don't ever talk now that I don't live there anymore. I quit texting. I hate it unless it's the only way to get ahold of the person.
I am proud to say that I have never texted! My husband has wanted it on his phone on occasion, but nothing has really come of that. We had his disabled when we would get random texts in the middle of the night (obviously a wrong number) and then got charged for them. I agree with your post wholeheartedly.
I totally agree. My younger siblings can't live without it, but I just don't get it. No one will be able to spell correctly, write a real letter, or learn to communicate in person if they are always texting.
I completely agree that texting seems to be taking over the world. But it has its good points, which boil down to one succint sentence:
Texting is the best way to stay in touch with my teenage daughter.
She doesn't like to answer actual calls on her cell because they interrupt her activities too much, but she will always take a few seconds to respond to a text. Useful text messages include "where are you", "when will you be home", and "who are you with?". Some other nice phrases are "Please get milk on your way home" and "have you seen my car keys?".
So, though I'm guessing that 95% of texts are on the wrong side of overboard, there is a 5% rate of helpfulness and true communication.
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