Lol

In today’s world, our teenagers use cell phones more than any other age group. And what has them glued to those tiny backlit screens? Texting, the new way of communications, the call function is almost untouched on the average teenager’s cell phone, but the key pad is almost worn out by the excessive typing. This new form of communication has had a large impact on today’s culture. For example, I remember in 6th Grade, in my small school where only the over-privileged students had cell phones, how two people would communicate using hand written, folded paper notes. As cell phones became more common and more affordable, the ancient art of note passing was forever lost. As I left 8th grade, I noticed that almost all of the new 6th graders have cell phone. And now I get stories from my younger brother that 3rd 4th and 5th graders are taking a fancy to the new, versatile technology. I assume it will not be long until children will be learning their ABC’s and 123’s on these small, metal and plastic handsets. But that’s not all; the cell phone is no longer a phone. If you have heard of phones like the Kyocera Switchback and the Motorola Switchback, they are a texter’s dream. No longer must the single thumb be worked to the bone, now both hands will be used to seen 160 character or less messages to their friends and family.

Although, texting is not just one pure badly written horror story, there are many positives that have made me succumb to its will. Texting can be much cheaper than calling. I can say as much as I would in an 18 cent minute call as I could in 3 or 4 text messages for about 10-12 cents. Texting is also a very discreet method of communication. Instead of hurling papers across a room, or endangering the students who are persuaded into passing notes, all one has to do is open his/her phone, while hiding it from the instructor, and then pressing a few keys, closing that phone, waiting, opening and reading the message. Rinse and repeat. This also shows the resourcefulness of today’s children. Fully typing out the word would allow for short messages. So why type properly when you can abbreviate and shorten words. I myself do this because most text messages have a capacity of 160 characters, including spaces, so most of the text messages use words of a 5 letter maximum.