Sep. 9 - What'll They Think Up Text?
At the risk of decimating my street cred, I'd like to reveal to the world that I, in fact, text message. A lot. Not at competitive levels mind you, but way more than a straight 21 year-old male (who doesn't even own an iPod) should. Not only that, but I'm good at it. With the help of the underused T9 feature, I'm able to compose entire, properly constructed sentences complete with clauses, capitalization, and punctuation.
I didn't start texting until the recent past, but once I discovered its usefulness, there was no stopping me. Combining the mobility of a cell phone with the impersonality of an instant message, texting allows me to directly contact anyone I want without actually talking to them.
Most would cite numerous locales in which this would be useful--classrooms, movie theaters, funerals, bar mitzvahs, brothels, deaf schools--but to do so is missing the point entirely. No, what texting did was transform the way we communicate. With a telephone call, the experience is engaging, time-consuming and, unfortunately, personal. AIM is almost just as bad; online contact runs the risk of instigating an actual conversation.
With the advent of instantaneous forms of innocuous communication, our globalized society has turned into a constant stream of one-liners and non sequiturs. Need a four second David Caruso fix? YouTube can help you with that. Need to know how your Apple stock is doing (I'll give you a hint: very well)? Scan CNN's stock ticker while you simultaneously watch Lindsay Lohan ruin her life. Need to know what your friend is doing RIGHT NOW without actually talking to him? That's what texting is for! Take a look at this one I composed the other night:
From: Nick
Sept 7, 8:57 pmWhat you up to?
Or watch as I respond to something I find amusing:
From: Nick
Sept 8, 7:38 pmHa ha.
And finally, an engaging micro-anecdote gains my approval:
From: Nick
Sept 8, 8:03 pmTight.
See how easy it is? The great thing about texting is that I may not care in the slightest what you up to. I may not actually think your previous text is funny. I may find your anecdote to be rather loose. But the recipient doesn't know that. I don't need to force my vocal inflection into any kind of faux-sincere tone. On top of that, once I've expressed my opinion (real or not), I can close the phone and be on my way. Those Futurama episodes aren't going to watch themselves, you know.
There are those who tell me that there was a time before texting even existed. Some call it "the 90s" or even, if you really want to get prehistoric, "the 80s." I simply refer to this time (roughly before 2002) as B.T., or "Before Text." During the B.T. years, if you wanted to instantly contact someone, you had to actually talk to them. I'm told telephones were attached to the wall, making them useless for those not immobilized by polio or morbid obesity. It's hard to imagine this level of intimacy, so I retain a theory that the especially clever constructed an elaborate mobile communication system involving Post-It notes and small rodents (or flightless birds, as the case may be).
I've heard rumors that there was even a time, roughly around 200 B.T., when people didn't even have phones to communicate! I prefer to ignore this frightening Dark Age and look to the future. I'll leave you with this final text that I sent not once, but twice in the same day:
From: Nick
Sept 7, 1:21 pmK.
Posted by Nick Nobel
