By: Billy Beerslugger
I got text messages from two ex girlfriends today for varying reasons. I mean yea I guess in both cases we said we were going to be friends but who actually means that? If I want to see how one of my friends is doing I call them. I’m like “Hey how ya doing?”, my buddy goes, “Good How you doin?” Then we talk about other extraneous shit like how wasted we got last weekend or “How bout that local sports team? Boy are they sucking/doing well”.
I can hear the tone and inflection of my friends’ voice over the phone. I can tell if that person is happy, sad, laughing, surprised or confused. With a text message I have to read how the other person is feeling (LOL, ROTFL, HAHA). Sometimes I get text messages with just one letter (K). As if it was way too much trouble to write OK.
Phone calls are good because I can get the statement I am trying to convey over to my friend in the time it takes to say it instead of the time it takes for me to type it on a small ass keyboard (and I don’t care how fast you think you are at typing on your Iphone or Blackberry, you’re not beating speech chief).
I can’t tell you how much I hate having conversations over text messages. However, i don’t completely hate texting itself, just the use of texting as an impediment of actual human interaction. When I was a kid I thought by now we would be talking over video phones and stuff like that (which we actually have), but it seems more and more that people are intent on texting, IM’ing and messaging each other on Facebook and MySpace than actually interacting.
So this gets me to thinking about something else. Kids nowadays have it soooo easy (yes I’m going to sound old here). Until the last 5-8 years or so, if you asked a girl for her phone number in high school you got her house number. When you called her you ran the risk of the Dad answering, the Mom answering, an older brother asking you what the hell you wanted. Then you had to say something retarded like “I just wanted to ask Susie about one of our homework problems”. You also ran the risk of another person listening in on another phone in the house and foiling your plot to sneak out and play a little grab ass in the park that night.
You don’t have that now. You just call the girl on her cell phone. Bing Bang Boom, done deal. She might even surprise you with a “Sext Message”, which is a naughty picture of her sent via the cell phone. Maybe she makes a little movie with her friend of them dancing to Lady Ga Ga in bikini’s and puts it on YouTube.
God I envy you High School aged kid. Well except for the acne.
Note: This Rant was written while listening to ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits.