by Theresa O'Riordan

Created on: April 26, 2008

Text-message communication is fine if you quickly want to check where your friend is in the noisy concert arena or some other crowded, let's hurry up and figure out what's going on, loud area. But that's about the only instance I can think of in which it's beneficial.

I am twenty-seven years old and I have a friend, the same age, who was in a relationship for over a year. The majority of her conversations with her boyfriend were through text messages. She would text him with reasons why she felt he was not paying enough attention to her, to say "we need to talk" (no kidding!...) and to play strange games with his mind. For example, a text from him saying "Do you want to hang out when I get out of work?" would be answered with "maybe....if I'm not already out...." The intention of this ambiguity would be to startle him into actually calling, or to make him appreciate that she could always get another date if she wanted to.

Obviously I'm talking about two people who have major communication issues in and of themselves. But add a text-messaging to the mix and the situation becomes ridiculous. My friend would get up the nerve to text a long blurb about something that she didn't have the guts to bring up with her boyfriend in person. So, when he would come over later in the day, she'd be so nervous about having to own up to what she wrote, that the two would wind up simply talking awkwardly about superficial things. The next day, the issue had not been resolved, so the texting came right on back.

Enough of my personal anecdote, but I hope it served as an example.

Here's another reason text-messaging is ruining communication. Every time I get an email from my fourteen year old cousin, I wonder if he actually goes to school. Until I remind myself that this habit of making acronyms out of whole phrases, and shorting words when possible to one letter, is being displayed by teens all over the country now. I even found a posting on the communication boards on Helium in which a girl asked a question using r for are, u for you, etc. I understand that these abbreviations make texting more convenient, but how in earth did they come to be used in normal correspondence? The typical email from my cousin would go something like this:

hi lin z (lindsey) how r u i m fine i hate skl tho it sucks.

I'm glad he still knows how to spell "sucks".

And here's the best one yet. My husband frequently hears two Chatty Cathies in his office, both in their early twenties, squeaking on about American Idol and the like, screaming in excitement over the parts they both liked, and exclaiming "O-M-G! O-M-G!" These girls are only a few years younger than me, and they're using OMG in regular, daily conversations in front of not only co-workers, but management!

I just hope they didn't write like my cousin on the cover letters they used when applying for their jobs....thks 4 readn pce out

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