Texting

The other night Erin suggested that we needed my cousin Kate's new mailing address. Kate is a sophmore at Indiana University (ranked 14th, 19th, and 8th respectively on the Princeton Review's "Party Schools", "Lots of Beer", and "Lots of Hard Liquor" lists -- a solid collegiate choice by all accounts).

The last time we saw Kate, she made an attempt to educate my wife in the art of "texting." For whatever reason, kids under 25 no longer have the ability to speak on the telephone or even compose a thoughtful email. They now communicate in short, incoherent bursts (possibly related to the rankings mentioned above) via cell phone text messages.

I do not understand this fad. I latch onto new technologies like a tic on a dog's hide, but this one I don't get. Isn't texting a sort of regression in the communicative landscape? With all of the computers and iPhones and Palm Pilots available to kids, isn't this the electronic equivalent of passing a note during class?

In a futile attempt to understand why "all the kids are doing it" and to maintain my own hipness (a quality instantly diminshed by the use of the word "hipness") I decided that the best way to reach Kate was to send her a text message. I set about figuring out how to enter texting mode on my phone. Once I found it, I began composing my message -- one Roman alphanumeric character at a time.

"d" Uh-uh. I need a capital D. Letters...shift...capitals. There we go.

"D-D" Nope. No more caps. Letters...shift...lower case. Voila.

"D-d" Still no go. I need an "e" not a "d". Press the "D" key again to get "E". All is well.

"D-e-a-r" Oh, crap. How do I do spaces? Letters...symbols...space. There it is.

"K-a-t-e" Two more minutes of my life gone.

"H-o-w a-r-e t-h-i-n-g-s g-o-i-n-g" Where's the stupid question mark. Back under letters...symbols...spaces. Three more minutes of my life gone.

I spent approximately 40 minutes composing a thoughtful message to Kate to inquire about how college was going, whether she was keeping her grades up, and whether she could forward her mailing address to us so that we could send her pictures of our adorable son. See? I was able to type that in under 10 seconds on a REAL keyboard.

I hit send. Approximately 8 seconds later I received something akin to the following on my phone.

"uh...ok. who is this?"

Oh, yeah. I guess I need to introduce myself.

"T-h-i-s i-s y-o-u-r c-o-u-s-i-n B-r-e-t."

Another 8 seconds elapse.

"Oh, hey! Good to hear from you! How are Erin and Grant? It's been like ages since I saw you guys? Did you watch the Olympics? Wasn't that cool? Things are going great here at Hard Liquor U. My apartment is cool, and I'm doing really well in my Informatics classes. I'd love to see you guys. I'm going to Indianapolis on Saturday. Maybe I'll see you around!"

Again, this isn't a transcript, but the key here is that she did that in UNDER 10 SECONDS. I was, to say the least, moderately annoyed.

I responded with something like "Great. Now send me your freaking address before I smash this little keyboard with my bloodied thumbs."

We went back and forth like this for the next couple of hours. After 10 or so messages, it occurred to me that I don't think our "cell phones for the elderly" plan includes texting. So it probably cost me $11 to transmit an amont of information equivalent to a one minute local phone call.

In the end, dazed and confused, I sent something along the lines of "We will c u l8r" and put my thumbs to rest. I have no greater appreciation now for texting than I did before this exchange. I fully intend to purchase Kate an IBM Selectric for Christmas so that we can communicate in a way that I find more meaningful and refined.