I’m 49, work in high tech, and carry a PDA with email, internet, & text. Attitudinally I’m not a gadget guy; the PDA is for work & I don’t own a portable music player or a digital camera or a GPS device or …, nor can I see any reason for me to own any of those things. The 20-somethings that work for me however …
Let me start with a similar topic & then I’ll hit my thesis. Consider this:
When I log onto the SDMB there are a hundred conversations (threads) going on & I can choose to engage (or not) in each of them. And I can choose how I engage; skim, read, drive-by, deep reply, agree, disagree, insult. They’re all options I can choose. I’m in control & you all are both the stage & my audience. Said that way, my approach to the Dope sounds very selfish.
But I suspect if we each look carefully into why we like the Dope & which pleasure-buttons it pushes for us, we’ll see that element. We each get Friendship-light with lots of people & with no obligations. No matter what our mood or interest, there’s something appropriate going on. Yes, there are consequences if we act like jerks, but there are never obligations. Ultimately, it’s a giant buffet of social hors d’ouvres but not really a meal.
And that’s damn attractive. Everybody loves a good spread of party food even though we know it isn’t really a nutritious diet over the long haul.
With that example in mind, let’s talk about texting & the OP’s original questions.
I see texting as two very different phenomena using a common technological medium. And it’s important to keep the two distinct when trying to understand them.
- If I have a practical need to communicate (“I’ll be home at 7:30. Do we need milk?”), texting is a technical means that is aysncronous but near real time, non-audible, and portable. By “portable” I mean it reaches the person wherever they are, not their desktop PC or their home answering machine where they aren’t. And for passing simple facts or simple questions, it can be quicker than voice, especially if you’re likely to have a voicemail (or two) in the middle.
If the practical situation mostly fits aysnc-but-near-real-time, silent, portable, quick, and simple, it’s not surprising text is a good way to go. It’s functionally the same as (simplified) email, but portable.
So much for “practical” texting. Simple enough. What’s interesting is case #2, what I’d call “social” texting.
- As my life has sped up in tandem with the general pace of society & business, I find I bore much more easily thean I did 15 years ago. I can hardly sit still through a half-hour TV show; I could never enjoy attending a movie & haven’t been to one in years.
As a result, whenever I have a spare 10 minuutes (waiting for a train, plane, doctor, etc), sometime along about 3 minutes my PDA is out & I’m looking at the weather, the Dope, etc. Or phoning some friend or relative to pass the time. Or, more ocasionally, texting somebody.
When I become bored, I want to communicate. But I want it on my terms. By phoning somebody, we will or won’t have a communication depending on whether they answer or not, and the other person gets some say in the conversation. They might want to yak longer than I have time for. I get obligations attached to my communication.
By sending a text, I say what I want, with no chance for the other party to influence the result. Sending takes about as long as my attention span (30-60 seconds), I get the satisfaction, my boredom is relieved, and in some sense, I really don’t care whether or not you reply. I got my fix, at least for a few minutes.
In a modern young-ish social setting, everybody is bored all the time. Every 30 seconds they want something new to stimulate their mind. 100% of the reality & people around them is not dynamic enough. So when the boredom reaches critical threshold, they relieve it by a one-way communication on their terms.
I’ve noticed a social fact which I believe supports this. If you receive a text that’s not a practical request for information, are you obligated to respond? It seems the common social standard is No. In other words, the commonly acknowledged purpose of texting is transmitting, not receiving or round-tripping.
This isn’t grazing on social hors d’ouvres, it’s popping social peanuts in an almost-unconscious habit.
Like the OP, by that description I don’t mean to pass judgement on whether it’s Good or Bad. It simply is.
The critical difference between heavy texters & geezers like me is they aren’t surprised their peers are bored shitless in the middle of an active in-person social situation, and so they take no offense when the person next to them drops out for a minute to send “hey wachu doin” to someone not there.