No place is more evident of this problem than text messaging.
1. Texting is a skill. If you're not good at it, you might send the wrong message e.g., "Hi Andrew. GO"
2. Texting leads to confusion. Just like email, the impersonal method is void of voice tone, body language and immediacy. For example, someone can send you a text message, and depending on when you read it AND the mood you happen to be in at the time, you can completely misinterpret the original meaning.
3. Texting is avoidance. Why text someone when it would actually take a shorter amount of time to speak the phrase you were texting.
4. Texting is the beginning of the end for written communication. In an effort to be pithy, the written language has succumed to alternative means:
u for you. . . ur for your. . .4 for for. . .2mara for tomorrow. . .you get the idea.
5. Texting kills. Those who text while driving are idiots. Unfortunately car accidents often involve more than the driver.
I call for moratorium on text messaging in an effort to save what is natural: to be humans and for the opportunity to fully engage in meaningful communication rather than avoiding it through a series of messages.
2 comments:
a roundabout response: i have been sharply criticized for my lack of capitalization in writing emails and blog posts. people have called it lazy, confusing and unsightly. while i still punctuate, lack of capitalization - per ee cummings - is an attempt at radical egalitarianism amongst letters of the alphabet. why should some be randomly capitalized and others not? all letters are equal.
this does relate to texting. on my phone, only the first letter is capitalized. so if you have a text with punctuation, the second sentence - or any proper nouns within the sentence - are not capitalized. only the first letter of the first word.
and that is just unbalanced. maybe i have an old phone. maybe i haven't worked out how to capitalize mid-phrase. i'm sure it's possible, but it's also more time-consuming.
so all lower-case it is. everywhere. it is too frustrating to have inequitable, capricious capitalization in text messages.
in a similar vein, these abbreviations are insufferable (to quote our dear friend fearlessvk). somehow there is a hierarchy of okay shortcuts that don't turn my stomach, but very few.
it is indicative of a general decline in respect for language to see signs that say KOPI KWIK or to text in shorthand. the devolution of orthographic correctness is one of the key indicators of the decline in culture and civilization. when we cease to care about spelling things correctly, we cease to care. period. this is not enlightened radical egalitarianism that informs my lack of capitalization. THIS is true laziness and moreover a celebration of ignorance.
i will take your criticism of texting a step further. while texting is a useful medium for conveying quick thoughts that don't need the conversational foreplay of "hi how are you i'm fine how are you what do you want can we just ge on with it", it also depersonalizes communication in the same way that email is contributing to the decline in snail mail. people should write more letters, handwritten. it takes time, it shows effort, it conveys meaning and is tangible evidence of thoughtfulness and consideration.
by the by, the "hi andrew. GO." text *was* really funny.
I do agree with you on the problems of text messaging. People sometimes write the way they text since they often text more than they write. Texting is a skill since everyone just grab their cell phone and you can see their fingers just moving across the button as you hear an old typewriter clicking as the buttons are pressed. Everyday I see people texting rather than just calling someone up to tell them the message. Like you said, it is a form of communication. I may mention about this post on my blog. Very nice post you have written.
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