Look around campus today. You will no doubt see several people with phones plastered to their ears, even more with iPods and a good amount with their cell phones open as their fingers fly from button to button as they text others. Very few will be enjoying their surroundings or conversing with others.
And this, my friends, bothers me.
As a psychology major, I have often observed the ways people communicate with one another, whether it be face-to-face, nonverbal, Morse code, whatever. However, there is one type of communication I absolutely can not stand, yet I am forced to put up with and even embrace: text messaging.
There does not seem to be a person on this campus who does not use text messaging. It's simply unavoidable. Text messaging is even used on TV shows for voting purposes, and my parents, who still use dial-up Internet, have even jumped on this texting bandwagon. My mom especially enjoys texting me, although she doesn't quite understand she doesn't need to sign them. Every message I get is signed "Love, Mom."
Anyway, 80 percent of communication is said to be nonverbal, and that means we are left with a measly 20 percent when we conform to this push-button plague known as text messaging. Text messaging boils down to one thing and one thing only: laziness. Some people, including myself, feel the need to avoid conversing over the phone and prefer making a five minute conversation turn into a 10 second text message.
I find this all ridiculous. Humans need to interact and converse with each other in order to be happy and survive. Otherwise, they turn into serial killers or cult members. Frankly, it's science.
Oh I'm on to you. I know what you're thinking, Mr. or Ms. "I don't like to be interrupted by a phone call, so that's why I like texts." Come on, people. Just check your phone after the meeting, class or whatever you are doing. No one's life is that important that they constantly need access to communication. People survived back in the 1800s without any form of electronic communication and chances are, you can survive an hour without it.
Another thing that really irks me about text messaging is the acronyms people use, especially LOL. People aren't really laughing out loud when they say this, trust me. And even if they did, you don't use this in normal conversation. "Then I laughed out loud." No one says that.
There's no stopping it, though, and honestly even I can't reject its attractiveness. Text messaging allows you to be lazy, communicate when you usually wouldn't be able to and say tell people things in less time. There is no end in sight to this massive miscommunication known as text messaging, so if you haven't started texting yet, you might as well join everyone else in this push-button plague.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've GTG, but I'll TTYL ... LOL! :)
Write to Jessica at jemohr@bsu.edu
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