Texting is great, but beware of the text speak!! (SMS Messaging in General)

Member Name: dogleggedhat

Product:	SMS Messaging in General
Date:	10/01/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick and convenient, pretty cheap too

Disadvantages: leads to people using horrific text speak which is carried into real life, makes people lazy

the first commercial text was sent in 1992, and since then it's just got bigger and bigger. More and more people are using this facility and its popularity keeps growing and growing. In 2000, 17 billion text messages were sent, but by 2004 500 billion were sent, which is a clear indication of just how popular it is.

With an average cost of 10p per text (approx 160 characters) and also much better offers with text bundles/monthly contracts etc, it's definitely very convenient if you can't/don't want to make a phone call.

I, like lots of other people, love texting, and feel it's a cheap and quick way to keep in contact with other people. However, I do think there are a few problems which come with texting, which I will outline below:

The main problem I have is with text speak. Now, I personally use this to an extent (you know, 'r' instead of 'are', 1 instead of 'one' etc) However, this is used in texts only, and does not carry over into any other writing which I do. However, it seems this isn't the case for everyone. I can't stand when people think its acceptable to write in text speak in everyday life. Increasingly, it's getting carried over into school children, and heck even university students work. I find it so tacky, and quite frankly lazy. It also does nothing to help those people who aren't particularly great at English, as it means they aren't learning to spell words properly, but rather, how they sound.

Other irritations are people who say things like 'dat' or 'dis' instead of 'that' or 'this.' WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?!?!?!?! at least shortening one to 1 still means its pronounced the same. This whole 'dis and dat' malarky really gets on my loaf! Similarly, I hate when people end a word that actually ends 'er' with 'a' instead. eg baker becomes baka etc-it's so annoying!! Especially when I live in northern ireland and people actually pronounce their r's at the end of the word anyway!!! AARRGH!!!

Also, some people seem so eager to make their text as short as possible that they omit all vowels all together, making the message look like some sort of code. Who can be bothered trying to decipher that?!

Aside from the whole text speak thing, texting leads to a few other things which annoy me. One of these is the 'general text.' Texting makes people lazy. Come Christmas and New Year etc you always get the 'merry christmas!' or 'have a great 2009' type text, which has quite blatently been sent to a million other people in the persons phone book. Personally, if someone can't be bothered sending me a personal message, then I can't be bothered replying-I'd rather they didn't send me a text at all!

Lastly, texting tends to make some people incredibly anti-social. Personally, if I was out at dinner with friends, I would only take a phone call if it was urgent. I know a lot of people would do the same, but thid etiquette doesn't seem to apply to texting. I've been out numerous times when people have constantly been texting, leaving me to sit feeling like a complete spare wheel. They may as well be saying 'sorry, but I have someone more interesting to talk to right now.' Very annoying indeed!

So, whilst texting is great and I do it lots, there are loads of irritations which accompany it. It really does make people lazy, and it's also become an 'acceptable' means for splitting up with someone, or so it seems. Note to all:- breaking up with someone in any other way apart from face to face, is not acceptable, no matter how 'modern' the technology is...

Summary: great and addictive, so long as you don't fall victim of the text speak!