Slashdot Mirror
Has Texting Replaced Talking For Teens?
Hugh Pickens writes "Sue Shellenbarger has an interesting essay in the WSJ where she talks about the 2,000 incoming text messages her son racks up every month — more than 60 two-way communications via text message every day — and her surprise that 2,000 monthly text messages is about average for today's teenagers. 'I have seen my son suffer no apparent ill effects (except a sore thumb now and then), and he reaps a big benefit, of easy, continuing contact with many friends,' writes Shellenbarger. 'Also, the time he spends texting replaces the hours teens used to spend on the phone; both my kids dislike talking on the phone, and say they really don't need to do so to stay in touch with friends and family.' But does texting make today's kids stupid, as Mark Bauerlein writes in his book ' The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future? 'I don't think so. It may make them annoying, when they try to text and talk to you at the same time,' writes Shellenbarger, adding, 'I have found him more engaged and easier to communicate with from afar, because he is constantly available via text message and responds with a faithfulness and speed that any mother would find reassuring.'"
Technology changes. Cultures change to adopt the new technologies. A few years ago the worry was that instant messenger programs would make people dumb. Now its text messaging. There's no indication that any of this is making anyone substantially stupider. The ignorance of general history, science and geography discussed in the Newsweek article aren't new things. It isn't like we were all history buff 30 years ago and now are all ignorant.
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Texting is popular because it is an extremely efficient method to keep in touch. It's half-duplex, so both parties don't have to be available at the same time. Text messages are brief and quickly digestible, unlike email. One point the story doesn't address is the idea of how many text messages constitute a conversation. Sure, sometimes it's a single message, but often you might find that over the course of an hour you have exchanged more than a dozen messages with the same friend. Given that, I don't think 60 messages a day for a teenager is all that high. It means they have somewhere between two to four friends. And unlike a phone call, you can actually do homework between messages.
I'm getting REALLY REALLY sick of reading these kinds of reports. Texting is not going to cause the end of civilization or throw us into a depraved existance where nobody sees anyone IRL anymore, and we all are addicted to our technology. This is the baby boomers taking Huxley a bit too seriously. Here's some reality for you: Most of my friends text. Some don't. Of the ones that do, they have a much more active social life and get out of the house a lot more often than those who don't. Texting, and e-mail, and instant messages, is a way for us to all stay in touch with one another in a highly kinetic world where plans are made and broken again in minutes as things change.
Texting doesn't "replace" talking -- it enables it! Look at your average baby boomer: They usually have less than 5 friends, most of them are coworkers, and if they are married their spouse provides most of the social interaction they're going to get. And they rot away watching TV or with hobbies like gardening. On the flip, you've got our generation where having forty friends on facebook is considered average. I see a friend at least once or twice a day. I get more social interaction in the flesh on an average day that my baby boomer parents and aunts and uncles get in a week, sometimes a month! And texting, email, and instant messaging make all of it possible. How else could we connect with each other in an information-rich world where things are moving so fast and we are all so mobile all the time?
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As a small business owner I have noticed that those "teens" turn in to my employees and think it's ok to text while working and then expect to get "good jobs" for showing up on time to work. In fact; I have a 17 year old girl who seems quite reasonable, say to me after showing up 20 minutes late that she thought, and I quote "I didn't think it was a big deal". This kind of thinking is not isolated, to her , it is very common in this age range of employees.
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Do you offer a No Kids On Lawn guarantee while they're away? It's very important.
Yea, I'm a current teen and my cell package is 250 texts a month. Needless to say I keep under that. But then, I also avoid actually _talking_ on the phone like the freakin' plague. If you text or email me, you'll get a reply usually within an hour. If you call me, depending on who you are, it may take _days_ for me to call you back. It's not that I have a problem with talking on the phone, I just don't like talking on the phone where other people can overhear my conversation - which as a teen is pretty much everywhere.
Sure they do, they're called mod points.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
I work with a lot of < 30 year olds. I am < 30.
The problem with the Humanity 2.0 types that you seem to be describing is that those people who are constantly bragging about multitasking, tend to be REALLY bad at it without realizing. Sometimes being able to twitter, facebook, and look up facts on wikipedia at the same time is NOT the desired or needed skillset. In my experience, the younger generations (self included) DO hate traditional hierarchies--with good cause! I quit my government job that I enjoyed because the bureaucracy was just unbearable. They currently have a HUGE attrition rate of 20-somethings who feel the same way. Yet, I've also found that those who rail the most against the hierarchies and authority frequently seem to be the ones who need the most oversight to get anything accomplished. Ironic?
Your most telling statement:
And they bitch about people being 10 minutes late to their shift -- and think that's more important than the fact that they're doing about twenty different jobs, holding six conversations at once on several different mediums at the same time and doing it well.
Maybe you just THINK you're doing it well. Being late to a shift/work IS a big deal (if consistently so). It's pretty selfish to think otherwise. You're absolutely right that we are living in an "accelerated" world and that a lot of older practices are obsolete and diminishing as we speak. The inward facing solipsism you express is troubling though--ever think that there might be value in other ways of working, other people's viewpoints, beyond your preconceived notions of how the World 2.0 ought to work?
When you say
Our generation has an excellent strength: Balancing many often competing objectives while working in a very socially fluid environment
I'd agree and add:
Our generation has an horrible weakness: Actually getting things done
You may have seen several slashdot articles relating to this (first one is pretty interesting IMHO)
Habitual Multitaskers Do It Badly
http://slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/1245221/Habitual-Multitaskers-Do-It
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/27/2221228
When I was teenager my parents would constantly tell us not to talk on the phone so long.
They always suggest we try "writing" to each other. Written communication is a "lost art" they would tell us.
Now everyone is writing instead of talking... I guess my parents should be happy!
Jeez, for the last time: I'm sorry I put you on those spam lists. Let it go man, let it go.
What makes teens stupid these days certainly isn't texting; it is the lousy below standard education, TV brainwashing, and the "American dream" house, that sits on a lot 100 miles away from any museum, cultural center and interaction with day-to-day events.
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For casual conversations in a lot of circles, texting has almost completely replaced phone calls. Actual phone calls are only useful anymore when something is time critical or the conversation would have a lot of back and forth discussion or details.
That's what a "conversation" -is-.
If what are you doing can be accomplished via texting it is either:
a) not a conversation
b) a stupidly inefficient conversation (as in 30 minutes to accomplish with a 2 minute phone call)
Texting is fine if you just want to send 'hey whats up' or 'I'm on my way' or a 'catch a movie tonight?' or 'which pub, what time?'
But people racking up 2000+ messages a month are usually just wasting time. If a text message exchagne exceeds about 5 messages, you'd have been better off with a phone call in terms of time, and in terms of building a real connection with someone.
The big 'advantage' of text message conversations is that they SEEM less intrusive. You APPEAR to have a conversation with someone whithout stopping what you are doing. Thing is, its complete bullshit. I used to watch TV/movies with my wife while she text messaged her friends. She thought it was 'good' because she didn't have to pause for 5-10 minutes to have a conversation. But it drove me fucking nuts with the little alerts going off and her constant clicking away on her phone. And it turns out that despite the fact that she thought she could do both at once, she ended up missing half the show.
Pausing it for 10 minutes, and just having a conversation works far better. Point is: texting is more disruptive and rude to the people you are with than takign the occasional phone call. Being completely interrupted once in a while for a couple minutes is better than being half ignored for 40 minute stretches.
Right on, Sister! Fight the power! All these big daddies are just aging wannabe hepcats. They are so uncool! So square! They just don't groove to our crazy lingo, you dig? They're such drags, such freams! Our gen has it made in the shade with our omnitasking powers of metathink and nonlinear preceptrons in the temporal. I think it's time to text the droogs together for an indulgence in ultraviolence to pilot our savvy into the record, tight me? If the dudes come through with their yarbles in dobby condition, we can spend some hourage back at the crib with the old lubbilubbing.
Mod parent up.
I have a 15-year-old daughter with a texting plan. Her constant texting -- when we're at the movie theater, when we're at the grocery store, when we're watching TV on the sofa, when we're driving somewhere -- drives me crazy too. I can't have a clear conversation with her when that damn thing is going off constantly. Suggesting she turn it off is taken as if I'm asking her to amputate her leg (and as the noncustodial parent with an uncaring ex I can't really force the issue).
I was always brought up that you don't answer the phone when you have company, unless there's some unavoidable event. It makes the person you're with feel like a third wheel if you bring out the phone and maddeningly punch buttons while they're trying to maintain eye contact with you and have a conversation. That's usually the opposite from your intended reaction in having them over in the first place.