Texting is something that I have thought about a lot recently. What was it's original purpose? Texting, properly called SMS (Short Message Service) was first used in 1992 by a computer engineer when she sent "Merry Christmas" to a coworkers phone via her computer over the Vodaphone network (mostly a European cell phone service). I can only think that this seemed like a novelty at first as the whole point of a mobile phone was that you could actually TALK to a person who was not near a land line. By this time e-mail had started to become popular and the notion of text being sent to a phone rather than a real, human voice seems silly in hind sight.
But as we all know texting has become possibly the most common type of communication for some people and a daily part of most peoples lives that possess a cell phone. There are some disturbing trends I notice such as the people who text while driving and how peoples walking speed is cut in half when they bury their nose in their phone while on the sidewalk. But my real curiosity lies in what will become of texting...
It is easy to see that it will become more prevalent among more people (wireless carriers take advantage of this, it costs them less than 1 penny of data service to transport a text message yet they still charge incredible amounts of money compared to what they are taking as a hit) or will it evolve into a different beast? Or may it die completely? A part of me thinks it will die off, as a fad perhaps, I wonder if people will eventually "discover" the joys of face-to-face communication one day after we begin using text based messaging as a primary form of communication. Or maybe people will keep buying the 6 year olds phones and this will be something that sticks around for eternity.
1 comment:
Blog/Reply #9- The (Distracting) Sociology of Texting
Unfortunately I don't see text messaging dying off anytime soon; it seems that everytime I look there is some new phone out there that makes texting easier and easier. It's simply ridiculous; people don't rely on good old face-to-face interactions anymore. They're too stuck in their gadgets to look around and see the world.
Luckily, states are slowly but surely begining to crack down on texting-while-driving, most recently Kentucky (http://www.drivinglaws.org/kentucky.php). I just hope that this is strictly enforced; so many car accidents happen due to some kind of driver distraction.
I am agitated when I walk down the hall or sidewalk and someone approaches me, only to whip out their cell phone and look at the time rather than say "Hi" or smile. People are becoming too uncomfortable and self-conscious because of cell phones; they're too worried about leaving their bubble and conversing with people normally.
I'm definetely not the ideal texter either; sure, sometimes I am so into my iPod music that I deliberately look at my cell phone to avoid conversation, and other times I pointlessly look at the time to avoid saying "Hi". But i'm getting better at it; I know it's a problem, and i'm working to fix it. I just hope everyone else can do the same.
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