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Journal Shadow Wrought's Journal: Texting, or, A Mindless Monday Rant 29

Journal by Shadow Wrought
At 34 I think I'm right at the cutoff of the "texting" generation. That or I'm an early, luddite curmudgeon. If I have a phone, and your number, and I want to chat with you... I'll dial your number. Typing voweless, near gibberish and acronyms seems like a lot more effort for a lot less comunnication. Yet, many of my friends below me in age do it as easily as breathing. Those my age and older seem to give it a miss. But, then again, maybe it is just me.
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Texting, or, A Mindless Monday Rant More

Texting, or, A Mindless Monday Rant

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  • Sometimes it's nice to send a little note to someone, but at $.15 a pop it's something I use VERY lightly. But for some reason, the guys I've been seeing seem to LOVE texting me. I guess it gets them credit for making effort without getting roped into having an actual conversation or something. AND they can do it at 4:30 in the morning and think that they're not "disturbing" me or something. (Truth is, when I get a new message, I have it set to buzz me, so they wake me up ANYway. *sigh*)

    I don't really see
    • Exactly. Well, not that part about seeing guys, but otherwise, I know exactly what you mean;-) One of my work buddies texts all the time (which is what inspired this). She and her hubby text back and forth all day long. Since she just got a new job I joked with her that I won't hear from her again unless I take up texting;-)

      I haven't been keeping up with multiply, so I may have missed stuff, but how're things? I hope you're finding more peace and happiness;-)

  • i'm 24 and i don't dig the whole texting thing. ... it is useful in the sense it is less obtrusive -if you don't really have much important to say. i'm an introvert though, so if i don't have much to say i won't send a text either. i suppose i send ~3 a month.
    • I'll google chat with a couple people, but I have yet to send a text on the ol' phone. I've received maybe 6 total (probably because my friends know me;-) I can also understand the introvert thing somewhat, too. Sometimes I just really don't want to talk to anyone.
  • Through the web, trying to get Susie's brother to respond (since he wasn't answering his phone). Yeah I find them to be pretty much useless.....
    • I'm more tolerant of chatting via the computer. After all, it is a written medium;-) Chatting via google is cool, but I don't do it that often. I don't think Gecko's new job let's him chat either, so it'll be even less:-(

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by subgeek ( 263292 ) *
        the other advantages of chatting on a computer is that there is a full qwerty keyboard attached to it and it's a device i'm using all the time anyway.

        i chat a little on the computer, but not much. texting doesn't interest me unless i have a very quick something to say that couldn't wait until a real conversation.

        strangely, posting on bulletin boards is normal for me.
  • i don't text much. it is really handy though when i want to correspond with my wife and i can't call her- like if i'm in an all day training class or something. i'm 38 and she is 36. her and her friends text back and forth a lot.
    • I can see the all day training class thing. I was in trial once with an attorney who texted any time he wasn't involved with a particular witness. The Judge either didn't notice or didn't care, but I still didn't want to be held guilty by association;-)
  • We're 26 and were just talking last week about how we must have barely missed the whole "texting" thing.
  • UR 34?! LOL! 34 z OTG! txtng z ezr tn tlkng n uzs fwr lttrs - EDIED, SW! OPOP!

    TTFN.
  • Texting?? My fingers are still making the transition from the rotary phone to this new fangled punchy type thingy. I also tried IRC once. I logged in and my head nearly exploded. There were more frantic conversations going at the same time than a bunch of women at a wedding dress fire sale. What's them other gizmos they got these days? iPod? I have heard of it. Cell phones? I do have one of those stuffed into my car glove box. Pagers? I found a dead one on the roadside once and wore it for a week to lo
    • IRC? Wow. That's one of those parts of the interweb that I have just avoided. I fiddled with newsgroups for awhile early on and they were so distatseful that I simply couldn't bring myself to think about doing it real time.

      We actually have a couple rotary phones, BTW, and they will soon be back in use;-)

  • I have a small group of people I text with, because it is more convenient on both ends to leave a quick blurb and takes less time than dialing and chatting. It's VERY helpful when one of my contacts is overseas (which happens a couple of times a year). I went ahead and paid for a block of messages per month, and it has worked out well for me.

    • There you go being all practical and even keeled;-) I made the Sourdough, BTW, but it didn't actually end up sour:-( Still a decent loaf or three of french bread though. So, still a good thing. Does New Job allow Google texting? I don't think I've seen your icon lit in awhile.
  • I'm your age. I use texts all the time. It's far faster, cheaper (and much less obtrusive if you're in a public place) to send someone a quick text like "Pub? 7:30pm?" than phoning them up. I'd rather hear someone's phone beep with a text and they quietly enter a reply rather than a hideous ring tone answered with a bellowed "HI, I'M ON THE TRAIN!!!111oneone".

    It's also handy for groups, for instance, the glider club CFI will check the weather in the morning and send a 'broadcast text' to tell us whether we
    • OK, so there might just be a practical aspect to it. Maybe. I still don't see myself sending one anytime soon, but Pub 7:30 could be pretty important.
  • When sent from a computer. I use my chat client to send one-way IMs to my girlfriend quite frequently. The AIM network will accept any phone number (well, at least in America) if preceded by “+1” as a username. In other words, send an IM to the user +12024561414, and that cell phone will get the message as an SMS. Very handy for those times when I hear the teenager next door stomping up the stairs and slamming doors, I can IM Jenn to say “Oh yeah, get more condoms while you're at the store
    • I really wasn't expecting that last line, LOL that was funny!

      BTW, have you ever received any texts back from that particular number? ;-)

  • I do the whole texting thing. But I am *not* replying to anyone who asks me, "hw r u?" -- you'd better use good English if you want to have a conversation with me.

    I must say that texting is extremely convenient and useful, especially in situations where calling someone may not be an option (e.g. meetings, while travelling etc).

    I just think of it as asynchronous IM in another medium, and the best part *is* that it's asynchronous. Someone sends me a message and I reply back at a time of my convenience, rather
    • You're right that it probably isn't an age thing so much as a taste thing. I guess I'm just predisposed to conversationally speaking more than texting. In other words, I'd much rather just get everything out at once rather than little snippets over time. I think the age thing has to do with that all of my friends who use texting extensively are a couple younger than I. Nothing like extrapolating anecdotal evidence, eh? ;-)
  • I hate people that abbreviate too much when sending text messages. I usually reply with "English please!"

    That being said, I text a fair amount because it can be done from conferences or other environments where talking on the phone is rude or distracting. Then again, I also use Google Talk and IRC from the phone as well.
    • That's awesome! Now that I think about it, I think part of my distatse with texting does stem from the butchering of the Enlgish language. That's MY job!
      • I might also add that text messaging has other advantages for those of us who are sysadmins: It's very hard to get a computer to make a voice call to your phone, but very easy to get it to give you a test message.

        For instance, if a RAID array I maintain goes degraded due to a failed disk, I get a text message within minutes.

        • It's typo-day for me!

          I meant "text message" not "test message."

          • What's funny is even when i looked for it I had a hard time finding it;-) When i know something's context, my eyes just kind of roll of typos and such.

            This is also why learning coding has been difficult on occasions. I simply can't seem to find the @#$%$#@$%^%$ typo.

            • This is also why learning coding has been difficult on occasions. I simply can't seem to find the @#$%$#@$%^%$ typo.

              Heh, even us experienced programmers have trouble with the single-character bugs. Quite often if you just have another set of eyes take a look at the code, they will find the problem instantly. I've been on both the "please help me find the bug" side and the "there's your problem right there" side.

              It makes a case for having two programmers at a terminal writing code. Provided they get alon

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