TEXTING…TEXTING…TEXTING
I think that the question of the day is how were humans able to survive for thousands of years without their smart phones? Our iPhones and Androids serve many purposes besides being able to communicate via telephone for which they were originally created. For emergency use, for checking news, sports scores or the stock market nothing can beat a smart phone. They have become indispensable. Today it is unusual for someone to step outside of their home without a handy smart phone nearby. I say that it is an important tool, but only a tool. The tool does not run me, I run the tool when necessary.
A new language has even been created, in part to cut down on usage for people without unlimited plans. LOL, IMO and TTYL just to name a few. We have a shared family plan with our carrier which is unlimited, fortunately. I checked our phone and text usage for a recent month. My usage was phone-93 minutes with 29 incoming texts. No outgoing texts. On the other hand my daughter’s phone usage was 287 calls for 1610 minutes and over 1,000 texts. The carrier does not provide information on text usage for over 1,000/month. It seems as if she lives on the phone. How does she have time for anything else?
What I find actually rude is when a stranger that you might meet is so busy texting a friend that you have become part of the wallpaper to them. It’s as if you don’t exist. If you drive your car by always looking in your rear view mirror you will miss very important information right in front of your face. We learn from observing and speaking to people that we meet for the first time. To text to family and friends ad nauseum is always to be looking into the past. It will always been a few seconds in the past. To quote Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Our blog photo was taken on a Manhattan subway car in New York City, “Texting…Texting…Texting“; January 31, 2018.