Kids text… Yes they do.

FRIDAY, JULY 9, 2010


Kids text… Yes they do.

I used to spend time thinking why things happened or if they didn’t why not. One thing that puzzled me was this phenomenon of texting. My head wasn’t big enough to wrap around it.

I spent almost an entire holiday dinner seated at a huge table in a very fancy restaurant getting some firsthand experience while my nephews and nieces were busy thumb typing in their laps. The adults made eye contact, smiled and talked. I tried to ignore the fact that my father in law was looking less and less pleased as the meal progressed. It looked like a lost cause. It was the elephant in the room that no one was going to mention.

I got up and followed my oldest nephew into the men’s room to ask him what the deal was. He showed me some pretty funny stuff including a text he sent that I had said something pretty stupid. I did not think there was anything unusual about me saying something stupid since I do that all the time.

I told him that most of the things he and his brother and cousins were texting could be repeated in adult conversation. With his grandfather footing the bill it would be nice if maybe they could put the phones down at least until after desert. He handed me the phone and told me to send the message to the others at the table. I demurred and asked him to translate what I just told him into text so that all of them would understand and then I would ‘sign’ it. So that is what we did. We went back to our cooling main courses.

I got the RME (Rolling my eyes) from the oldest niece and the MEH (shoulder shrug) from her sister. His young brother just let go with a G (giggle). At least for the rest of the meal they acted like they were enjoying themselves participating in the discussion of family remembrances. Grandpa started enjoying himself a little more and stopped making furtive glances at the kids that had not been acknowledged.

As soon as we got outside the bistro the kids were feverishly right back at it. Faces buried in their glowing hot LCD screens they resumed texting each other and friends back at home eating their Christmas dinners. The text enabled cell phones were furiously sending and receiving vital messages. They paused just long enough to echo the oldest cousin’s obligatory verbal thanks for grandpa picking up the tab. I think they would have texted him if they could have for paying for things they would never find at the fast food joints they frequented when they paid for the eats themselves. There are NO $40 Bison Burgers at McDonalds.


My sister and her husband were in town yesterday taking care of some of the things their college daughters needed before they vacated the apartment they shared as roommates for last two years and moved into a little smaller space. We had breakfast with them at a local greasy spoon before they drove up to the mountains to spend a little of their long summer vacation they get for being tortured by illiterate Catholic high school students. They had to stop to make the obligatory shopping trips so the girls did not starve until they saw them again. Next on the agenda they would head over to Europe, the dessert on top of a summer without children, theirs or others.

My sister was also trying to get a cell phone situation straightened out before going oversees. The middle daughter had killed her cell phone. She still had too much time left on her plan to be eligible for a new subsidized phone. This eventuality was expected and the crisis averted by the purchase of a replacement insurance policy. None of my sibling’s family’s five cell phones except youngest’s would do anything in Europe except hold down stacks of papers. They wanted to take the new replacement on vacation with them but settled on an even trade of phones between mom and the youngest.

The subject of texting came up. Imagine that!

Mom’s phone was not overly text friendly since it is an older clamshell. It is not an excessively smart phone. Their youngest likes to text, the two oldest, not so much. This probably has more to do with their dad not buying a texting component to their family cell phone plan until recently. He finally caved. I suppose it has as much to do with the youngest ones getting their way more often than the older ones did. For her to enter an s after the trade she will have to hammer the 7 key four times! The sacrifices these kids have to make today.

Between sips of miraculously weak coffee we talked about our youngest sister’s recent visit to South Florida. She brought her daughter and her daughter’s friend. All three have smart phones and the subject of texting came up again. Imagine that!

The teenagers sat for hours in the living room busy thumping out code on their cell phones mechanical or virtual keyboards not even saying a word to each other or anyone else for that matter. Most of the time I think they were just KPC AMAP (Keeping parents clueless as much as possible).


Their love of texting came in handy when the sisters dropped them at the mall. The girls texted my youngest sister every five or ten minutes where they were and what they were doing. Either my youngest sister knows the code or they texted in plain English. I suspect the former since the baby of our family is very tech savvy and even brought her iPad on the trip so she could read her book, check her email and surf the web when the girls were seeing what each other was doing on the other side of the room.

“@ Gp NP.” This would have been a typical message to mom. Kids often drop vowels to save the precious megabytes their parents are paying for. How thoughtful. Good thing there is only a Gap and not a Gep, Gip, Gop or Gup at the outlet mall. RME!

For me phone calls or just talking are a heck of a lot easier and less digit entry intensive. I have spent the majority of my adult computer life trying to figure out ways to keep from having to type to enter data into my electronic devices. I tried voice recognition software for my computer when it was in its infancy and not particularly accurate or well developed. I am going to give it another shot to see if it has in fact made progress. Hopefully, the transformation is now seamless from spoken to typed text… not like in the old days when context did not factor in and eight might have been ate or hate or any other combination of characters that might sound vaguely close to what I said. My early tries at VRS caused me to waste more time correcting mistakes than talking to enter information. Proofreading and deleting and then re-typing what I had meant to say took far longer than just typing it once.

I know if I push the wrong button on my cell phone it starts yelling at me over and over: “Please say your command.” It rarely follows the verbal order I give it. “Call Home!” after the third attempt is canceled by hitting the red Pwr/END button and instead just pressing and holding down the #3 button. I can’t make #1 Home because that is dedicated to the Voice Mail function and can not be changed. RME!


Possibly this is one reason that kids text. Or, they may want to talk right now. The other person could be talking, or busy, or on the phone, or texting, etc. There is no danger of hearing odd bathroom noises when texting. There is immediacy to texting. The person who the message is intended for does not to have to dial their Voice Mail, enter their code, receive their message and then delete or save it. They just read it right on their phone, key in a coded response and send and then flush.

Kids might be driving and need something to hold their attention. If they text they can get it out of their system as soon as the keys are depressed and the message propelled into the ether. As long as the air bag does not deploy it becomes someone else's responsibility. The ball's in someone else's court while they are communicating other extremely important information to someone else.

It is as rude to ignore a text as it is rude for the kids to text when eating. Soon someone will write a Miss Manners or Amy Vanderbilt good manners texting book: The Complete Book of Computer Etiquette: A Guide to Contemporary Texting.

It won’t be me.

It looks like The Emily Post Institute is already on the job: http://www.emilypost.com/home-and-family-life/133/391-text-messaging.

Why write a book when you can post it on a website? Little hints like “Make sure you’re texting to the right phone number! It’s very easy to dial the wrong number or select the wrong phone book entry.” Kids texting must be thinking: DOH! OR, "Taking a call signals that the person you are with is less important than the person calling. If that’s not the impression you want to make, don’t take the call—the caller can always leave you a voice mail." Or text. DOH!

For me texting will require learning a new language. I barely know my first language. I don’t know how many additional languages I need to demonstrate incompetence in besides English and Hochdeutsch.


ARE WOMBAT AFAICS (Acronym rich environment Waste of money, brains and time As far as I can see.)


AWHFY (Are we having fun yet?)


Kids text because they can.

99. Hopefully that is NOT LNT.

I don't want to get a big head. It really does not matter too much because I am pretty much clueless. I prefer to remain that way. BSF-RC.

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp

© 07.09.2010 steven d philbrick SR+ DakotaDawg


POSTED BY SRPLUS AT 6:31 AM 0 COMMENTS