Cythraul: That's a lot. I'm lucky if I can tolerate texting 3 times a day.

My daughter is one of the few that text me. Phones are like crack for anyone under 25 it seems.

Cythraul: AbbeySomeone: Cythraul: That's a lot. I'm lucky if I can tolerate texting 3 times a day.

My daughter is one of the few that text me. Phones are like crack for anyone under 25 it seems.

Yeah, I have a 12 year old niece who's all about her cell phone. One of her mom's most favorite punishments is to take away her cell phone for a while. When I was her age, if my mom threatened to remove my phone privileges, my response would be along the lines of, "Really? I thought you were going to punish me."

If she had threatened to take away my computer, or Nintendo, however, I would have been all teen-angsty.

The threat of losing a phone, laptop or car keys is effective.

Parents, maybe its time to adjust your phone plans: bring the minutes down and the monthly texts way, way up.

Who has a child of text age and doesn't have unlimited texting?

namegoeshere: Parents, maybe its time to adjust your phone plans: bring the minutes down and the monthly texts way, way up.

Who has a child of text age and doesn't have unlimited texting?

Which cell provider paid for this story?

My niece went nuts with the texting and pics when it was first available and somehow managed to rack up an 800 dollar bill.

I was behind a pickup truck at a stoplight yesterday, the light turned green, the truck moved forward at about 5 miles an hour. I could see the young man driving it in his rearview mirror, looking at the road quickly, looking down for longer, looking at the road quickly, repeatedly. It was obvious he was texting while traffic flowed by. I honked my horn at him and then he picked up the pace a little. It ticked me off.

When my bosses daughter was working for and using his cell phone she had a whopping 22,000 texts in one month. She constanly had her phone in her right hand and was texting while working. When I mentioned this to my verizon sales person when I was getting a new phone, she said the most they had seen in one month was 28,000. I do about 6 texts a year and most of those are replies.

Txting is instant messaging for teens. Remember back in AIM was popular? Now they just use cell phones.

I much prefer texting to most other forms of communication besides face to face. My 87 year old grandpa and I text daily which makes me smile.

Carth: Txting is instant messaging for teens. Remember back in AIM was popular? Now they just use cell phones.

AIM in the reason I'm a proficient typist now. Trying to hold 6 conversations at once will really help hone in on those skills.

I probably send close to that and I'm over 30.

Is this supposed to be an outrage or something?

I don't text but I use Google Talk on my phone to communicate with my wife quite a bit. Not while driving though. It annoys me when she writes a question to me when I am driving, especially when I've just left work. Sweetie, you know I'm driving and can't answer this, why don't you call me instead?

Fano: In the punishment arms race, this is a won derful development. Sending your kid to his room was becoming no punishment at all, and required monitoring. Now you just say "hand over that cell phone" and suddenly you have taken away all contact with friends etc.

Until they get their own pay-as-you-go cell phone.

I prefer texting over phone conversations. I've never really liked talking on the phone much, I just prefer to have real conversations about mundane shiat face to face. Texting allows things to be quick and to the point.

I have a friend that hates when I text him over something small, his complaint is that it could've taken me 30 seconds on the phone, my retort is always: but it takes 10-15 seconds to send a text.

Cythraul: That's a lot. I'm lucky if I can tolerate texting 3 times a day.

How many fark, facebook, emails, etc do you write a day? Now pretend they were all txted instead. Its just a different medium.

I absolutely hate texts. If someone sends me more than 2 in a conversation I just call them. Otherwise they are hijacking my time.

ami5000: How much of that is sexting?

All of it. Are you kidding ? To a Virgin "Hi" is foreplay.

Sheesh, I'm almost 30 and send about 40 texts a day. I run a side business and am constantly selling stuff on craigslist, so txting is awesome since I'm not tying up much time gabbing on my cellphone. Plus I send the majority of them during my breaks and an occasional one if it's a family emergency. Also I have a mom and a sister I am close with which probably results in the majority of my txting. So much more convenient then phone calls and I loathe voicemail.

The more they text, the less they talk.

/I'm ok with this
//as long as they don't text and drive
///which they will
////teenagers tend toward doing stupid things
//the good Lord knows I did

Anyone remember the freak outs about how much kids were using AIM and ICQ?

Good times, good times.

namegoeshere: Parents, maybe its time to adjust your phone plans: bring the minutes down and the monthly texts way, way up.

Who has a child of text age and doesn't have unlimited texting?

We don't. My daughters are aged 14 and 12. The older one has a 5+ year old phone (no camera), and we don't have text services enabled in our contract. I guess it's somewhat about how you raise your kids and your family priorities, as well as your needs.

/gosh I miss the land line phone with the long curly cord

It drives me insane when I see someone swerving all over the interstate while trying to send that last "LOL" to someone. Half of me wants to see them splatter themselves all over a bridge abutment. It'd certainly serve them right for not paying attention.

People's fear of progress amuses me.

Yes, people use a newfangled technology called "texting" now. Some people send lots of texts every day. Your technophobia won't change this.

60 times a day? They misspelled 'hour'.

yanoosh: When my bosses daughter was working for and using his cell phone she had a whopping 22,000 texts in one month. She constanly had her phone in her right hand and was texting while working. When I mentioned this to my verizon sales person when I was getting a new phone, she said the most they had seen in one month was 28,000. I do about 6 texts a year and most of those are replies.

28,000 texts a month is just over 58 texts an hour assuming a 30 day month and 8 hours of sleep a day.

How could you even?

/I did have a girl in my class several years ago that had her phone dismantled with a hammer by her father because she ran up a $1200 texting bill in one month.
//She was indignant, thought she did nothing wrong, and he should have just paid it.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: "I prefer texting over phone conversations."

Ditto that.
One of the best things about texting is that it's asynchronous.
Both parties don't need to drop everything else they're doing at the same time to communicate. You can fire off a text, and they can ignore it for however long they like. You don't have to worry about an incoming conversation interrupting what you're doing for something less important/interesting. And if someone starts babbling on after you're 'done', it's socially easier to just stop replying than to abruptly end a rambling voice conversation.

Also to the point of the speed of texting vs the speed of voice: you spend more time _waiting for the other person to answer their phone_ than you would texting out simple questions in many cases. So whether a voice conversation is faster is only part of it. And there's also the waiting for the other party to mentally shift contexts from what they were doing to what you want to talk about. There's a distinct lag in communication efficiency there. (e.g. "did Bob drop that thing off to you?", "wait... what thing?... was I supposed to... oh, oh yeah. ... uh... no. I don't see it... oh wait, here it is.") With synchronous communication, the sender loses that time too.

Granted, some people are bad at socialization and treat texts as urgent, to the detriment of everything else. But that's their failing. Not a failing of texting.

Texting, while sometimes useful, is a major pain in the ass. No wonder kids today seem so farked up. It is unbelievable that parents give their kids anything but the most restrictive, basic cell phones. They don't need testing for anything.

I hate this generation of...

"txt omg lol mispelld hah ignrant :) trololo"

I don't have a problem with the kids texting as long as homework and chores are getting done. I am a bit worried when the oldest starts driving, but we've been reinforcing the message about not using the phone while driving (illegal in OR) at all. She's a decent kid, so we may have success. Not so sure about the youngest, but if she doesn't shape up, she won't be driving at all.

Lame story bro:
My phone died last week. I let it sit for 3 days before recharging it. Nothing was missed.
/foreveralone.jpg

i used to think texting was stupid.

until it took over my communication. i text everyone. hell, i rarely actually talk to anyone on my phone. i text mom (who has adapted well to her iphone and texts like a fiend), the wife, the ex, my friends, everyone.

fark calling. i'll text you. and in general, don't farking call me. text me.... if it is important, I'll get back to you.

what texting has done is remove the urgency the cell phone once placed on itself (you are not calling bill's house anymore, you are calling BILL, he has a cell WHY WON'T HE ANSWER).