Being a communication major, I have often marveled at the different ways people communicate with one another, whether it be face-to-face, sign language, Morse code, whatever. I have always found communication an enthralling subject on so many levels. There is one form of communication that I absolutely can't stand, yet I'm forced to tolerate and even embrace: text messaging.
For full effect, download "Killing Me Softly" by Lauryn Hill and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.
Text messaging seems to have taken over the world. You look in any direction and there are a half-dozen people texting someone else. Even as I'm writing this blog, I am texting someone across the country. It's unavoidable. This push-button plague has swept across the world, taking over people’s keypads like the Roman empire of old. There's no escaping this form of faux-conversation. It's ridiculous.
Douchebag McClure: "See, what I do is sometimes when I'm talking to a girl I can say whatever I want to. I can say the most vulgar, nasty, sexually suggestive things to her, and then if she freaks out and gets mad at me, I can just say I was kidding or that my friend had the phone, and she won't think less of me and I won't get in trouble. That's a pretty good plan, don't you think?"
Yeah, that's a really ingenious plan if you want to end up in prison, psycho! What kind of stalker-ish lifestyle are you trying to promote here? One where you can say whatever perverted things you want and then get away with it by blaming someone else? I smell a Chris Hansen/Dateline NBC special brewing about this.
Another thing that absolutely irks me about text messaging is the acronyms people use in their messages. You know what I'm talking about, JK, OMG, GTG. It's silly how many of these stupid codes we use to convey such easy messages. Are we that lazy that we can't spell out the words ‘just kidding’? I think the stupidest one ever uttered has to be LOL. Who has ever said that in any real conversation? I've never heard anyone just stop and say, "I was sitting on the park bench, and laugh out loud, the paint was wet, laugh out loud."
Yeah, not happening.
I think my favorite acronym has to be TMISUSTIWTDACPTWEC, which means text messaging is so unbelievably stupid that I want to destroy all cell phones that were ever created. But you already knew what that meant, right?
Am I making a mountain out of a molehill here, or do you see where I'm coming from? Text messaging is ruining the world. All the short messages, acronyms and smiley faces (don't even get me started on those) are destroying the foundation of human conversation text by text.
There's no stopping it though. Even I can't refuse its attractiveness. For instance, the other day I had a three-hour conversation with someone who was sitting two feet away from me. Why did I do this? Because I could, that's why.
There is no end in sight to the massive message miscommunication that is text messaging. Will we tire of this and go back to normal face-to-face conversations? I don't know. All I can say is if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Now if you'll excuse me, I've GTG :) LOL
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