Dear John,

I'm a Yahoo user, and my new guilty pleasure is reading Shine at work. Shine is a combination of user blog posts and more professional blog posts to make something equivalent to Cosmo, only it gets updated every day.

This was a user post I read this morning.

This is in direct balance to my prior post about the love text. And while it is cute to send love notes through sms, on paper or even on the phone, it is absolutely disgusting to tell a spouse about an impending divorce in anyway other than face to face.

As much of a fan as I am of the sms message, in no circumstances should this be ever done. I believe I've had a prior post about how not to break up with a boy/girlfriend over text; marriage is completely inexcusable.

What is wrong with people? It would almost be better for this woman's husband just to disappear into the night without any trace, than to send a text like that. It's probably a good thing they are getting divorced, especially if the marriage means so little to this guy that he can end it in less than 160 characters.

That text is in extremely poor textiquette.

Saving Text Messages

If you too want to save text messages there are a couple of different ways.

1. If your phone has a SD memory card slot, you can save them to that, and then access them on computer, or a new cellphone.

2. There is a great website call Treasure My Texts. It is a social sharing website, for example you can follow your friend's texts, but there are ways to set it to private, or just individual private texts.

Feel free to view my stream.

The Dying Art of Letter Writing

Last night I was invited to a dinner party at a Professor's house from my Undergraduate days. It was a pot luck dinner for the English faculty at A.I.C, including some retired staff, most of the people I haven't seen since I graduated two years ago.

I was delighted to spend the evening with company that I have always held in such high regard and enjoy conversation about theater, music and literature. Towards the end of the night, the party dwindled down to six people, and they began discussing how each had met their spouses, and the courtship rituals that each had gone through. I, on this subject, was merely a listener, I can barely hold down a boyfriend, let alone husband. They all began to discuss how each had written love letters, and had held onto each precious memento.

As I sat in the large living room by the fire place, in my Professor's renovated Victorian house, with all the artifacts from all the various countries that she has lived in, I too began to lament the loss of letter writing. How personal it is, to receive pages upon pages, of another person's thoughts. These letters are physical records of a person's life, memories, hopes and dreams.

Yet, me and my generation, have the text message, and while it is not as nearly romanticized as the letter it does have it's benefits. For one, there is no long waiting period for the letter to physically cross the country, we can have instance gratification from cell phone to cell phone. For two, it can be just as romantic, and it is possible to keep text messages forever. For example, I have one from my ex-boyfriend that I can't part with:
"For what it's worth though Denise...I love you the way you are. To me you'll always be perfect. :-)"

No, it's not sixteen pages, like the first letter one of the couples had received from his wife, it doesn't even take up the full 160 characters but it's enough to still have an emotional impact on me.

Perhaps if I was to divulge this information to the English faculty, they would just have sighed and shaken their heads, feeling pity for me and my electronically fused world. And perhaps they're right, I will never know the anticipation of waiting at a mailbox, but I do know the anticipation of waiting for my phone to light up with a call or text. They're not exactly the same, but deep, deep down, they have the same significance.

Pointless Texts

I no longer like checking my voice mail. Quite frankly, it is a pain in the ass to dial the number, punch in my password and listen to the prompts before I get to the actual message. Then, typically the message sounds like this, "Hey Denise, its (insert name of friend here), give me a call back." Grrr. I was going to call back anyway, that is what my missed call list is for.

This type of techno-laziness stems specifically from text messages. I only have to press two buttons to reach my message. However, those two buttons are far too many to push if the message reads, "Hey."

It is common courtesy, if you are going to get my attention by sending out a text message, for the love of God, make it more interesting and worth my time to push those two buttons. I'm even okay if the message reads, "How are you? I haven't seen you in awhile" or "Do you want to hang out?" Both these texts implies the same thing that "Hey" does, but it gives the receiver of the text slight more satisfaction knowing that the sender care enough to write a full sentence.

Hearing

I have a motorcycle which I recently put custom pipes on. I also worked at a motocycle shop for several years, so I had to stop by and show off the pipes. I stayed until close and a couple of the guys were getting ready to leave at the same time that I was. My old boss was in the building still; she was too busy to come and hear my bike, so I made sure to wind the throttle as I left the parking lot, and "hot-rodded" up the street.

One of my old co-workers pulled up behind me at the stop light, and yelled over to me, "Those are freaking loud!"

When I got home I texted him, letting him know that my brother and I are were thinking about making the bike louder (which no I'm not, I'm amazed I haven't gotten pulled over yet).

The text I received back was: "WHAT?!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!"

Which was amusing because he couldn't hear the text to begin with, I was writing to him. This is the co-worker that is responsible for a good portion of the texts that I've blogged about so far, and obviously it was a joke. I just think that it is interesting that a strictly text-based form of communication, can cross the sensory barriers from sight to sound.

A long, complicated, drunken story

I play softball on the co-ed rec league in my very rural town, and have been involved with said league for several years. As my readers can imagine I know a lot of guys, and beastly women. So, when I go to the local sports bar on a Saturday night my chance of running into a softball player in the league is fairly great. As my title indicates this is a long and complicated story, that will eventually lead to text messaging, and I'm going to use bullet points that will represent the evening in a chronological order:

1. Ordered a drink, and noticed that a man, that plays in the league (on a different team) is sitting about five yards away from me; I'm not surprised I've seen him there before. He was sitting at a table with a large group of people, and I did not want to interrupt him, so I engaged in conversation with my good friend and d.d.
2. I notice that the my fellow softball player's group had dwindled down to him, a very pretty young girl, and two really geeky looking guys. The table dynamics did not make a lot of sense, but I didn't think much about it.
3. I order my second drink; while talking to the waitress I get a good glimpse of the softball player's knee comfortably resting against the pretty young girl's knee. I have a buzz at this point and am confused because my softball colleague is married; she plays softball as well.
4. I decided that it was a good idea to text another friend of mine, who also plays ball on the same league, to see if he knows about the status of their marriage. Perhaps I'm jumping then gun, he could be going through a divorce.
5. Frustrated that I'm not receiving an answer (doesn't everyone have their phones on hand for texting at times like these?) I happen to glance over and see that the pretty young girl's legs are draped over his. Not a comfortable position to be in, so clearly there is an ulterior motive for this leg touching. I very "inconspicuously" take a pic with my camera phone.
6. Waitress comes back, and I order my third Bacardi and diet coke. Still haven't gotten a text message in return, I storm off to the rest room to break the seal.
7. On my return from the bathroom, I accidentally make eye contact with my follow softball player. This is not a conversation I want to have, but I can chit-chat with almost anyone, and I wanted to see if he was wearing his ring (he totally was). We discuss the progress of our respective teams in the current season...that was it.
8. I get a text message (from someone that I don't play softball with) and I am currently preoccupied until my good friend and d.d. pulls me back into the world of the bar, "You really pissed her off."
9. At first I'm confused and then realize that the pretty, young girl no longer is draped over my softball player, but is sitting up right, scowl on her face and furiously tapping away at her cell phone.

Yes, oh yes, she was texting about me. Realizing that someone is texting about you is very disconcerting. If it was an actual conversation I could move closer to overhear, not the case in the world of the text. I'm fairly sure she was letting some other young, pretty friend know about how she thinks that I'm a whore, because I talked to a league mate about the softball league. Apparently she completely forgot she was trying to get in a married man's pants. But why wouldn't she be jealous, if he's willing to cheat on his wife, why wouldn't he be willing to cheat on his mistress. As if mistress is some sacred position to be.

So I guess the moral of my story is that people who live in glass house shouldn't throw hate texts around, or at least shouldn't be so obvious about it. Oh yeah, and of course that extramarital affairs are not OK.

May 1st 2008

Today is my birthday. I recieved 12 text messages wishing me a happy birthday.

Texting vs. Writing

There is a long standing debate about whether or not electronic forms of writing is slowly killing grammar and punctuation. Since it is young people that are thought to be the ones utilizing technology, it is them that are being looked at to prove or disprove this theory. Basically it is believed that teenagers are being lax with their school work because they are lax with their electronic language. USA today published an article about a study done on the fear of this trend. Readers of the USA article would be terrified that within the next ten years all forms of writing would inevitably lapse into text speak.

However, if readers take the time to peruse the 83 page study of teens and their writing habits, the future would not look so bleak. While there are a few teenagers that claim they have used emoticons in school papers, which is horrifying, the study doesn't look at the either the GPA of these students, nor does it specify what the assignments were. Was the assignment a formal research paper, or in a class assignment that doesn't weigh heavily as a grade? Furthermore, the study finds that students are most guilty of improper punctuation and capitalization. If I'm not mistaken, those are mistakes that students have been making since the beginning of school, even for the baby boomers that grew up in a technologically free zone. Don't believe me?

Not to say that it is okay for students to make mistakes, it is merely understandable; they are students. That's the point...they're still learning. As this study points out, the majority of teenagers see a difference between electronic writing, and formal writing. If anything more teenagers are writing now than ever before, and that is exciting.

The Text Heard 'Round the World

Last night I was at Blockbuster renting The Invasion (a pretty decent remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I recommend it). While there, I happened across a copy of 10 Things I Hate About You. I immediately made a pouty face, something that I will probably always do when I think of Heath Ledger. However this is a blog about texting and not a memorial to tragically early deaths.

Well then, you might be asking, what do Heath and texting have to do with each other? The way that I learned about Heath's death was through a text. I received simultaneous text messages about his death from my friends Suzy and Eana. I, in turn, texted my friends Mary Bear, Josh and Heather. What is interesting is that Mary Bear called me back to tell me she was sitting in a class room, waiting for a class to start, and she had already gotten the news from her friend Missy, via text. Not only that but a girl sitting in class next to her, had gotten a text about Heath only moments before Mary Bear had gotten mine and Missy's. Josh had gotten a text message about him as well.

It would be interesting to have access to the SMSC to see how many text messages were sent about Heath Ledger in an hour span. Granted, I only know about those ten people, but yet those ten people all had access within minutes to information all through text messaging. It's fascinating how information can travel through just our cell phones.

Are You a Caller or a Texter?

There is a theory going around that people rely on either calling or texting as a primary form of communication with their cell phones. I am suspicious of most statistics and did not really believe it; I thought that everyone texted on a fairly regular basis. That was until I met a few guys at a bar and we moved onto the topic of texting, mainly because of my cute orange enV (it matches my car). I had told them that I needed a full querty because of texting. That was when they informed me, to my horror, that they only text, maybe, a few times a week. I think they were equally as shocked to learn that I have to delete my full inbox on a daily basis. So here's the math on my last phone bill:

Texting: 1108
Minutes: 1476

It appears that I both talk and text fairly equally. However the majority of the minutes used are not short conversations, they are mostly 40 minute (or more) conversations. I would say that my cellphone usage breaks down to quick conversations are done over text, and longer more important ones are done voice to voice.

What are you? Post your cell data!

do u spk txt

Companies like Cingular have been advertising by exploiting parents inability to understand the new language that seems to be emerging from texting messaging. This is most likely one of the most clever forms of advertising from a cell phone company, specifically because it hones in on the frustration from both the parents and the children. Children are tired of their parents not understanding their high-tech version of a note, and parents are frustrated of feeling alienated from their children.

New York times recently ran an article about this gap. Of course there is always a generation gap between parents and their children, however this gap seems to be an abyss that is nigh impassable. Some parents have been trying to reach their children in their children's own terms. Recently I have been teaching my own mother to text. Although I have a very open relationship with my Mother, seeing as I have left the teenage years quite some time ago, it is still easier for us to communicate through text on occasion. If she wants to know if I plan on joining the family for dinner, and I am still at work, she can shoot me a text, especially since we're not supposed to talk on cell phones at work. Even though it seems that she takes an eternity to tap out a word, her new found skill has made her quite popular among her own co-workers. They in turn want her to teach them how to text. I'm thinking about setting up a cellphone class. Hmmm new career direction?

Land Line Texting

I was sitting at work, answering the phone (yes, I am a glorified secretary) when I received one phone call that informed me that I had a land line text message. I followed the directions that the Sprint automated voice told me and I heard a computer in telling me in a monotone voice, "hello."

I do not understand why the cell phone companies would come up with an idea as ridiculous as land line text messaging. It is one thing to text from a computer to a phone or vice versa. Text messages are supposed to be quick, uncomplicated messages from one mobile device to another. Hence the name SMS (short message service). However, in order for a text message to work, the sender has to know that the receiver is in fact within walking distance of said land line. If know that the person that you are land line texting is home, pick up the phone and call them.

Further more, how can a land line text read the language of a text message? Many people use abbreviations, and rely on the text to express themselves. A computer voice reading texts aloud removes any human expression, and listening to a computer laugh out "hahahaha" is just creepy.

If you are going to take the time to push extra buttons and text a land line, especially a wrong number, please be sure to make your message more interesting than hello.

http://www1.sprintpcs.com/explore/ueContent.jsp?scTopic=txt2landline293

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Text

Hi my name is Denise, and my last text was one hour and 52 minutes ago.

There are obvious advantages to texting. However it needs to be said that there are times that texting is appropriate and there are times that texting is not appropriate.

Never text:

1. When Driving: Its not safe, it doesn't need an explanation
2. When Walking: Just ask the British
3. When Drinking: Your ex does not want a text from you, let alone a text at 3 AM. Neither do any of your other friends, unless they are of course drunk (and of age) as well.
4. When Asking Someone Out: Unless you're 13, you need to do this face to face. Grow some balls (even if you're a girl); getting turned down builds character.
5. When Dumping Someone: See 4. Making someone cry builds character.
6. In Class: It's rude to your teacher and your classmates. The keys making clicking noises, and if I can put my cellphone on silent then so can you.
7. When In A Fight: Because it is sometimes hard to decipher the true meaning of a text, it is better to fight when you can at least hear each other. That way things won't be blown out of proportion.
8. At Work: This applies to people that are in direct sight of either their bosses or customers. Anywhere other than that (office, cubicle, bathroom) it's fair game.

This is a basic list, feel I left out any? Leave a comment, I'm sure I will be revisiting this topic.

Expressing Meaning Through Text

Text messaging, as discussed prior relies on many things to get its point across. However what is interesting is how the text itself can be manipulated to create new meanings. There are several examples of this, creating pictures through different letters and symbols, ex: <3> back and forth (yes of course it was at work!). Somehow we started texting back and forth really lame jokes. Jokes are interesting in themselves because they do typically rely on more than just words. Here is an example of one of the jokes that my co-worker sent me (in the original format):

Bear walks into a bar, bartender says what'll u have? Bear says
gimme a....................beer. Bartender says why the big pause?

Obviously this joke is a pun, a pretty bad pun at that. However it is fascinating to see this joke written out. For one the text is manipulated in a way that shows a long pause in breath. One would assume that my c-w was breathing normally while he typed out this text, however it allows the reader to hear/grasp the concept that there should be a pause.

Plus it is quite interesting that he chose to spell out "pause" as the last word of the joke. "Paws" would have been equally funny. When we hear a pun it is never deciphered which spelling is put to use. My c-w made the decision to use the spelling of "pause" indicating the space in the text, allowing the reader the option to re-read it with "paws." Perhaps it would have been more ironic to use the spelling "paws" to go against the space in text. Either way it is a prime example of how people can manipulate text to get their message to the receiver of a text.

Text Based Expresion

Text messaging is the next generation of instant messaging. You can carry your conversation any where instead of sitting at a computer and chating. However one concern with a text based communication is trying to express yourself while having a conversation. People take both tone of voice and body language for granted until they try to express themselves in a purely text-based medium.

While using text messaging texters need to be aware of each others personalities, how they would typically respond while face to face, and the use of text. To further illustrate this I will simulate an exchange of text messages between two people.

Debbie: Do you want to go to the Watering Hole and get a beer tonight?
Harriet: Yah ok...I'll jump in my car now!

This conversation can be read at face value: Harriet is excited about going to the Watering Hole and is leaving to meet Debbie right away. However, anyone that personally knows Harriet is perfectly aware that she despises going the Watering Hole, and her response should not be read as enthusiasm but pure sarcasm.

Harriet's response is relying on the fact that Debbie knows Harriet's personality; this response would not work well with someone that does not know Harriet well. There are other ways to further express personality through text messaging, which will be explored further in upcoming blogs. However it is important for the average texter to be aware of how they want their text message to read and how it can be potentially read.

My First Text Message

The first text message I ever received was sometime in 2001, on my old nokia; the nokia that everyone and their mom owned. Anyway, my phone was upstairs charging, and I started to hear loud strange beeps. I had never heard the phone make that noise before, and was confused. I should state that, at this point in time, I had never even heard of text messaging. I looked at my phone, expecting a missed call, figuring I had accidentally changed the settings. Yet, low and behold, it said I had a message, from my friend Breezy. Yes, Breezy, if you're reading this, you popped my texting cherry. I'm not even really sure what it said, other than a possible: "What's up?" or something of that nature. Unsure of how to proceed I called her to see what this message was exactly, and that was when my eyes were opened to texting.

I didn't exactly jump feet first into this type of communication. Worried about prices of each text message, I think on the plan I had at the time it was something like .40. Slowly my affinity for texting grew, so much so that I'm sending and receiving thousands of text messages a month.

I never thought much about how much I rely on texting as a form of communication until people began to point out that they didn't need to clean out their "full inbox" every day. That brings me to the point of this blog. This blog will be looking at text messaging from all sorts of angles and how it has changed our forms of communication.