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I have texting…

At least I made it halfway through my senior year of college before caving, right?

Yes, I went with a new service provider this week, one that will cost barely four dollars more a month and give me twice the minutes I used to have available, plus lots of texting (not unlimited though). I figured that was cheap enough to warrant the switch, plus I wouldn’t have to sacrifice the great cell coverage around here.

I’ve always been “the one” among my friends who doesn’t even have texting (not just limited, but none, nada, zip). Even my Quaker friend without the Facebook page has texting. So, it’s kind of a big deal for me to be doing this, at least for my roommate. (She has said for months she always wants to text me random things she thinks of, or observations, or whatnot.) So far I appreciate the additional method of communication; it comes in handy in certain situations.

I do, however, worry about being consumed by the texting culture. Number one, I’ve seen so many friends randomly text right in the middle of a social situation—game night, talking at lunch, what-have-you—and since I think that’s a rather insulting thing to do, I never want to succumb to that temptation myself.

Number two, articles like this one previewing the new book Alone Together make me worry that I’ll wreck my social abilities if I get too attached to texting.

“We're using inanimate objects to convince ourselves that even when we’re alone, we feel together. And then when we’re with each other, we put ourselves in situations where we feel alone—constantly on our mobile devices. It’s what I call a perfect storm of confusion about what's important in our human connections.”

Not that I’m a Luddite, some sort of anti-texting freak. Obviously I’m not. But I don’t want to misuse this fun little technology, and in so doing harm myself. You see?

Comments

da_baum said…
I think it really depends on the people I'm around as far as whether or not it's rude for me to be texting. If I'm at my grandparents house and they are trying to have a conversation with me, then, yes, that would be rude to text in that situation. However, if I am at an orchestra concert, then I have no problem texting. Especially in the quiet sections so everyone can hear me typing!

Yes, that last part was a joke...but just hanging out with a group of friends, I generally don't have a problem with someone texting, as long as they aren't more focused on that the whole time than actually hanging out with real people. I guess I'm just used to people doing that though.

Oh yeah, and welcome to the twenty-first century! :)
readersis said…
:P At least I didn't wait until 2012 to get texting, right?

I can see the deal with just hanging out with a group of friends. However I do know people who ARE focused on texting the whole time, as opposed to maybe answering a text once or twice in an evening or sending a text message in the course of the evening as a result of some part of the conversation. The first kind of friend has checked out of our fellowship; the second kind hasn't, yet.

It also annoys me when people are texting in class... which they do all the time!
da_baum said…
That mostly annoys me too. I text in class on rare occasions, but only if I have a good reason to. Like a night class where I'm trying to stay awake, but can't without doing something. Or when one of my friends isn't there, and likely forgot we had class because we changed the time of the class for that day. That happened a couple weeks ago. And I only did it because we had only barely started and someone else had just told him we were starting at the normal time...

My favorite is people who text while they're driving. With me in the car. I'll walk, thank you very much...
readersis said…
Yeah, that sort of situation makes texting in class reasonable. Usually I see people texting habitually, and it irks me.

Oh yes... I know several people who text while driving. I can't even dial the phone while driving, much less trying to text.
da_baum said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
da_baum said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
da_baum said…
I probably can text while driving, but I haven't tried, and don't plan on it...it's illegal, and probably would get me killed, or worse. My younger bro, however, does it quite well...
da_baum said…
Yeah...I triple posted the same thing...I have skillz...
MutantJanitor said…
d-b, are you spamming RS's comment wall?
*texts a friend*
So anyways..
*gets a text and laughs*
I really don't like people
*phone beeps*
who text all the tim-
*phone beeps again*
e but I admit that I've
*looks at his new text messages*
been guilty of doing that...

Depending on the situation.
readersis said…
John: Please warn me if your younger brother ever gets within two hundred miles of Ohio.

Sam: I've said it before and I'll say it again. You are utterly absurd. :P

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