So while driving, you are busy fantasizing about sexually assaulting other drivers. And you think they are the distracted ones?
Even in the dark ages before texting, I was known to do other things while holding my infant. Walking through a parking lot- I’d keep an eye out. But texting while holding an infant is not inherently a dangerous thing.
I don’t know about the OP, but I have an issue about people walking through a parking lot and not paying attention to what’s going on around them. Doesn’t matter what they’re carrying.
Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking. It’s not safe to assume that drivers see you when you’re walking through a parking lot, so doing so while carrying a baby and texting seems like poor judgment to me.
Looking at my family’s usage last month:
Me - 1,248 texts
Wife - 265 texts
14yo daughter - 309 texts
So we’re texting all sorts of crap, to each other and to others. Why people get bothered over a means of communication is beyond me.
Did she tell you that? (if not, how did you know?)
Geez, that IS pretty bad.
Please let me know when your company goes public. I’d like to invest:)
I have this theory. That in about another decade or two, people will be terrified about cave diving. NOT because cave diving can be dangerous as shit. But the idea of not being to text or be internet connected for hours at a time will freak them the fuck out.
Say you text someone something that doesn’t require an immediate response. How long does it take before you consider them rude or send another text saying “r u there?” or something similar (and annoyingly elliptical)?
Exactly. “Be here now.”
How did we ever function without texting? Or cell phones, for that matter?
I’m lucky to do 10 texts a month. Mostly it is to alert one of my sons to the ‘code word’ on the ‘morning show’ competition when he missed it…he lives in high hopes of being rich one day. 
But yeah, there are some who cannot live without their phones within an arm’s reach 24/7, and spend most of their waking hours jabbing away at the little black buttons for WHAT? It infuriates me no end, especially when I am in company with said people. Unless it’s a life-threatening emergency, there is NO REASON why a text needs to be responded to immediately…I’m tempted to take your phone and shove it up your arse!
My apologies. I interpreted you saying you were laughing about texts sent earlier to refer to texts you read in the car while driving.
I’ve seen tons of unsafe texting behavior, despite the very high fines we have here. It does get me mad.
Those of us who are old enough remember. It was a totally different world back then, with differing expectations. Sometimes people just didn’t show up when expected. You worried yourself sick if it was someone you cared about, and then - when they eventually found a pay phone - they called to explain that they’d had a flat tire.
If you remembered while your son was at school that you needed orange juice, you still had to make a special trip out to buy it, because you couldn’t text him and ask him to pop into the store on his way home from school.
I could go on, but the fact is that we simply have different expectations about what’s possible now. I bet when telephones were first invented, people had similar complaints about how they interrupted civilized discourse and the privacy of one’s home - or something.
I understand texting just fine. I just don’t understand the need to be in constant communication. I don’t have enough to say to anyone to be texting all the time.
That’s all true and phones are great for those relatively rare situations. But I doubt the two people who are sitting across from one another at a restaurant and texting instead of talking to one another are dealing with shopping lists.
I’m texting my friends to see how long they think we can be on your lawn before you yell at us.
Don’t worry, if we took away the cell phones of those people who annoy you so much by texting at the dinner table, they would doubtless find another way to upset you. The problem is, you are expressing ire at a perfectly cromulent technology because you don’t like the way a few people are using it - and I am hard pressed to see how it harms you if people want to text at the dinner table, anyway.
There’s nothing “relatively rare” about situations where cell phones and texting offer tremendous advantages. Maybe they never occur in your life, but in mine they happen constantly. And I am an old geezer.
Imagine all the inane and pointless conversations you have with everyone in every day life. In person or on the phone or via email or any other medium. Now just cut it up into chunks of 144 char or less. That is what is being texted. Mostly utterly tedious BS.
You can text as many characters as you like…
Privacy. I’ve heard some really personal phone conversations (often arguments) on public transit, which are awkward to hear even when you can only hear one side. I aim to never be one of those.
As for what I text, usually things like “At the store. Are we out of X? Can’t remember.” and “Home in 20 mins, start dinner pls?” and “Fucking wheel broke off the grocery cart. Can you meet me at train station and help me carry?”
Sometimes “Running late, be there in 15” when it’s relevant. And sometimes “Here. Where are you?” if I can’t find the party I’m meeting. (Texting is also good for noisy environments when we wouldn’t be able to hear each other on the phone.)
I don’t carry on lengthy conversations over text, because typing on something that small is laborious. It’s good for brief exchanges of information though.
That’s Twitter, not texting.
I’m at work and my husband just texted me a random I love you.
Making plans with friends is easier with a group text, plus I can refer back to the text for information.
I hate talking on the phone and all of my friends know that. So we text instead.
OTOH, I don’t have long text conversations with people when I’m walking around, though. I’m not that coordinated. I also don’t text while driving, or in a way that would be a nuisance to those around me, like at the dinner table or something.