In this increasingly hectic world of hustle and bustle, few of us have the time these days to really take a moment and communicate the old fashioned way. Over the telephone. Instead most of us run our lives in such a way these days that we do not allow ourselves the chance to relax over a good old chat with a friend and make plans or catch up the way we would have a decade ago. These days it is far more convenient to simply send a text message.

Mobile phone technology has come a long way. These days you can do almost everything from your Mobile phone. Take photos, listen to your favourite tunes, search the net. So why is it that it seems the thing we seem to do less is actually phone people with our telephone? Instead we are relying on what is becoming quite a popular development in technology, the text message.

Text messages themselves have improved with technology also. These days you can your friends a photo or even a video or audio file. No longer is it merely a little bit of text squeezed into a small space. Over time we have also improved with our text lingo as well, developing a whole new language for the mobile phone generation. These short cuts may not come so naturally to the older mobile phone users, however teenagers and even children these days know these short cuts so well, it does make you wonder if they actually know how to spell anymore.

The great thing with text is that even when you are in a place where you know using a telephone is not appropriate, you can still send a sneaky text to a friend if the need arises. Such as you are at work and are not allowed to make personal calls, so you quickly type a text message while hiding your phone in your desk drawer. Or you are in the cinema and as much as it drives people insane to see your glowing screen in the dark, they cannot complain you are talking in the movie.

However does that make text messages socially acceptable in all situations? No. These days many people abuse the convenience of text by sending messages in the most inappropriate places, such as the example above with the cinema. Surely it could wait until after the movie and if not, go outside, make a quick call and come back.

The great thing about text messaging is that it is useful for those of us who do not really like making phone calls. I happen to be one of those people and it is far easier for me to just send a quick text occasionally to a friend about catching up than it is to call and make those plans.

Text messaging is cheaper that a phone call, however even that can be debatable. If you are trying to make plans with someone and sending several text messages back and forth, the same plans could possibly have been made after a quick one minute phone call which may end up cheaper than sending five text messages.

These days it is not even uncommon for people to break up over text messages. Unfortunately that is further proof of the abuse of this impersonal form of communication but again, it all comes down to convenience. Who has time these days to be trying to catch friends on their phone when they can simply send a text message and know their friend will get the message soon and hopefully reply. And there is no feeling more exciting than getting a new text message. It seems this impersonal communication is the way of the future.

Learn more about this author, Holly Rogers.
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