Text Time

Today, I finally succumbed to all the peer pressure that had been mounting for years. After trying to hang on to my social sovereignty, I finally have a text messaging plan. In reality, it was my father who, for financial reasons (at least I assume), realized that unlimited text messaging for the family is indeed in the family's own self-interest. While it certainly took a while to give into this fad, I had two reasons for my pro-talk stance, both relatively simple:

1. I'm cheap, and texting costs money.
2. A phone is not a computer, it's a telephone, over which two or more people are meant to hold a verbal conversation.

I soon found out that not everyone held these same beliefs. In high school, plenty of my friends would text, but not too often. Once I reached college, however, I found out that texting is an intrinsic part of the social scene in itself. I found myself sacrificing a social life in pursuit of saving 10 or 20 cents a week. Eventually, the opportunity cost of not texting outweighed that of texting, and here I am today. Unlimited texts, any time verizon to verizon. I assume I won't exceed my 500 non-Verizon texts per month, but I'll have to see.

I would argue that text-messaging is a general "good," (probably not a particularly ennobling characteristic, though a fellow ennobler is a texting virtuoso) but despite the alarming capabilities that texting allows, it does have its downfalls. First, its awfully difficult to express one's feelings in two or three poorly written sentences. Second, texting can often change what would be a 15 second phone call into a difficult exchange leaving both parties confused. Finally, text-messaging is yet another tool among the "wilderness of gadgets" that my colleague discussed recently. Texting does not feed "on the lowest impulses in our nature by appealing to our laziness and indulging our lusts, for violence in particular," but it does make me question our cultural values and norms, and shows how dependent we humans have become on technology.

That being said, feel free to text (or call) me whenever you'd like. Cheers.