I h8 txtng

Maybe it's because I just don't get it.  Maybe it's because of the role it played in my marriage falling apart, real or imagined, literally or symbolically.  Maybe it's because when I am around people texting, it feels a little like someone whispering to someone else while I'm standing right there, not being let in on their little secret.  Whatever.  No matter the reason, I can't stand the whole texting thing and am irked by people being so attached to it as a form of communication.
  Maybe I actually get it a little more than I used to.  It started to dawn on me a few years ago at work, when I would notice teens and pre-teens enter the store with their parents, eyes and thumbs glued to their device, clearly messaging back and forth.  Sometimes the whole group would be walking around like zombies, eyes aglaze and thumbs ablaze, texting away.  (I often imagined them texting each other while standing right next to each other instead of talking {omg,  how cute is this ring?---rly? h8 it, roflmao@u}).
 Maybe  I can kind of understand texting's ability to communicate for a quick informational check in, like "need milk while ur out" or "b back soon"( ...wait, that would actually be- brb)etc.  Call me old fashioned but isn't it just as easy to call and speak, or leave a voicemail?  OK, so not always, I can understand that.  But to carry on a back and forth conversation, ongoing, for ten or fifteen minutes?  Maybe more?  Some people say we are more connected because of technology, but how is that more connected than having a conversation?  Again, why not call and have that chat, so you can hear a voice, they can hear yours, getting more meaning, and more connected, by actually hearing the words spoken instead of reading them on a screen?  Getting back to my point, I started to realize a big reason why people text when observing kids texting with parents around;  texting allows people to have a private "conversation" in public. Kids could find out where the party is going to be, or who got busted in school or who slept with who, without being overheard, and, just as good, without having to (gasp!) wait until the next free moment or even the next day (!) to get the goods.  And I certainly realize that it's not just kids doing it for this reason, it was simply the circumstance that brought on the revelation for me.
  Maybe I'm am a little more tuned in, a little more sensitive, and a little more resentful because of how texting symbolized the beginning of the end of my marriage.  The ex seemed to use it as a way to distance me.  It also enhanced the jealousy and paranoia I felt since I seldom received and never sent her any texts, and I would always get vague and or evasive answers when I would ask who she was texting all the time.  So I admit to, and own a strong personal distaste for texting.
  But with it's popularity and ubiquity, I have started to grudgingly accept it.  I even stoop to its use on occasion myself. Not on my phone, I don't have a plan and my phone is just a phone dammit!  but I got an ipad recently and I do use the messaging feature to communicate with the ex when I have info to share about the kids or whatever, but I either don't want to have a conversation with her or I just don't want to hear her voice! (Ahhh,  new enlightenment on why people may use it!)
 Or maybe it's when shit like the following happens:
Twelve year old son gets picked up at school, tells me "I need to go take some pictures for my (really big, really important) report (due tomorrow)."  We don't have a camera with us but he tells me he can use his phone.  "You know how to get the pictures uploaded?" I ask "100% sure?"  Yup. "You've done it before?" Yup.  Ok. So we go and take the necessary photos. 8pm that evening "Dad?  I can't get the pictures off my phone."  "What?  I thought...blah blah blah"  "Oh yeah, that was my old phone"  Great. I try unsuccessfully to get the job done, and the wheels start turning, how can we do this?  I know!  We can send them as pix messages to his sister, who has an iphone, and she can then e-mail them back to me and we can print from there. One minor step in between though.  Due to responsibility and trust issues (time+access+12 year old=porn trouble) there is a text and data block on my son's phone.  Like I said, a minor step online and the block is removed, pix messages sent, e-mailed back, and printed. 9:30pm- Project complete-hooray!
   Son goes off to read and then to bed while I do basically the same.  Although nodding off while reading, I am then unable to fall asleep.  Thinking back through the day,  I remember that I didn't turn the text and data block back on. Rather proud of myself for not completely forgetting about it, I log into my account online to do the block and I notice 57 messages in the usage category.  Hmmmm.  I check it out, knowing none are from my line, and that there should have been only five or six from the photos sent.  The detail portion shows the other fifty or so messages, sent and received, nearly all to and from the same number.  Over the course of an hour.  From 9:00 - 10:00pm. A little shocked (and a  lot pissed) at how he couldn't resist the temptation, almost as soon as it presented itself,  I checked his phone, curious to found out who he had been texting with (and yes, what subjects were discussed). I was neither surprised, nor pissed when I found out who (an ex-girlfriend {already? he's 12!}) or what (typical teen pre-teen, boy, girl, post break up pre get back together stuff)  was discussed.  I was pissed (but not shocked) to find out that the message count was now in the 90's and he had been at it until after 11pm.  Steady. For an hour and a half after going to "read" and a half hour after goodnight, sleep tight, lights out.
  I don't care so much about the back and forth with a girl, that's pretty "age appropriate" as they say, although there is a time and a place for it and I'm not sure alone in your bedroom at 11pm is either for a twelve year old.  But I can deal with that.  It's the fact that, literally, within minutes of the block being removed he started doing what he knew he shouldn't. And then lied, begging off  to read and go to bed, while actually texting the whole time.
  So maybe it's a trusting issue not a texting issue.  Or maybe that's just another reason Y I H8 TXTNG.
  And then there's those who use their blue-tooth thingies in public, so you think they're talking, you know, to you.  Don't even get me started on them.  That's a (rant) blog for another day.

Peace 2 the Planet....
 

Talking on the Phone-How times have changed

I was talking with a friend yesterday (in person) and we were both commenting how neither of us likes talking on the phone much (as those around us talked or fiddled with their phones).  I asked her if she felt the same even in high school when most teenage girls are on the phone as much as possible.  "Are you kidding me?" she replied" we had an egg timer by the phone-only one to three minutes per call !"  And that's when it struck me how quickly phone usage changed in less than one generation.
  Growing up in my small town-you only had to dial five digits for a local call-the last one of the prefix and then the 4 digit remainder.  It seemed like a huge hassle when the change was made and we had to dial, gasp, all seven digits!. And with rotary phones, people lamented having to dial numbers with nines and zeroes.  Our out of state relatives and friends must have hated calling us...802-875-3007-all those 7's, 8's and 0's!  But it did provide my father a level of personal satisfaction when giving out our last four numbers as;  Three, James Bond. Huh? invariably was replied.  "You know, three, double O-Seven" would be his smiling answer.
 A second phone in the house seemed like the ultimate in luxury-especially when some friends and neighbors still had "party lines".  That's party line as a phone term not a political term.  If  I remember correctly, you would dial a friend's "party line" and all of the households' (parties')  phones on that line would ring.  And if the wrong "party" picked up I think they hung up, but the phone could "ring through" until the right party picked up.  Kind of funny when you think that now it seems like everyone in the house has there own phone, even young kids, and back then a single line was shared among separate households!
  And then there were beepers (late 80's early 90"s?).  Do they still exist (outside of the ones you get at busy chain restaurants letting you know when your table is available)?  If you saw someone who wasn't reasonably well dressed with a beeper ( a Doctor) you wouldn't be going out on a limb to suggest that they might be at the other end of the social/professional spectrum ( a dealer).  Actually, come to think of it a friend of mine is an electrician who currently uses a beeper.  Not sure why.  He's got a cell.  Wait-I know!  For some reason beepers (and texting) often work when a cell won't.  But if you get beeped and you can't call to find out what it's about...then what?
  Next were the first generation cell phones-often car phones  hard wired into your car with a sizable antenna on top (though not as big as a CB antenna-remember when those were the rage?  beyond truckers, I mean......they still use them....right?) OR a "portable" version that resembled a large purse or lunch box. Then we "downsized"  to cell phones that were larger than our cordless phones at home!  Much to the embarrassment of our young but still cognizant children.  I think they called them Fred Flintstone phones (Wilmaaaaaa!!!)  They were soooo relieved when we finally got phones that would fit in our pocket.
  Now we have these "cellphones" that are used less and less like phones and more like hand held PC's or, music/video devices, or game platforms.  Except for me.  I think I am one of the few people whose phone is "only" a phone.  I like it like that.  My phone is a phone dammit!
  Crazy I tell ya.   If Spock and Kirk had only known back in '70...  (or whenever they were trekking about with their "communicators"...)

Beam me up indeed.

Peace to the Party Line...