I know I have lived through a time when there was no such thing as texting, but to see this handy form of communicating hit the 30-year-old mark has me SMH and LOL.
According to businesswire.com, "Infobip, a global leader in omnichannel communications, today, announced new data from its 2022 '30th Anniversary of the SMS" survey, which sheds light on how, where, and when Americans are communicating with each other."
First things first: I had to look up the meaning of SMS. And I hear you, 'c'mon, it is obvious!' Alas, I never thought about what it meant for all these years and feel no shame for it. To those of you still reading this, it means short message service.
Some of the texting survey highlights include:
-Americans of a certain age prefer texting to calling - SOSO.
-Texting and driving are deadly and still sadly very popular.
-Sexting is a popular element of romance used primarily by millennials, then GenZ and GenXers, and lastly by boomers. Again, no surprise. Men (52%) send sexts while 38% of women partake.
-Texting while drunk continues to include the element of regret. ROTFL
-Businesses incessantly hungry for our eyeballs use texting as much as possible to communicate brand info with us.
While my email has transformed into a repository for shopping confirmations and sales reminders, texts are a sacred space. I try to keep my text world protected by using it to chat solely with my people (and for the occasional hair appointment reminder/confirmation - I did say sacred, right?)
One mistake I made when I began to text was including abbreviations like "u" "cu" and "k" for a while. Texts took on a hieroglyphic feel which displeased me so I happily returned to mostly using the English language.
Emojis are a kind of hieroglyphics in the text world and I try to use them judiciously partly due to trouble in locating a specific one - let's say a horn-blowing confetti that can be found in the middle of mailboxes and bed emojis.
Sadly, this year is the one where I "discovered" the emoji search box that has been there ALL THE TIME! Sad face emoji.
My beef with texting is the l-e-n-g-t-h-y practice of the text chain. The ability to reach many folks at once is tainted with so many replies/comments/blah blah blah. And yet, this week I was the leader of a text chain pack to nail down a December meeting with eight of my fellow book club members.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Another beef I have (that is ironically also a plus) is the three texting bubbles. They percolate during a text exchange relaying that a reply is imminent - until it isn't. My soft sensibilities cannot take seeing those bubbles of hope only to result in no reply text. Sigh. I'm just a girl waiting for a friend to reply.
And to be fair, I've accidentally left my cursor in the text box, potentially giving false hope to the recipient. Apologies to my dearest friends.
Morning Brew Newsletter's musings today include a tidbit about what if texting had been around throughout human history. It prompted the idea for this blog post and offered a few ideas:
Cleopatra to Mark Antony: "u up?"
Francis Scott Key to his buddy: "Does 'rockets red glare' sound dumb?"
This activity delighted me and I offer these:
Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton: "STFU!"
Israelites to Moses: "Where are u?"
Harry S. Truman: "Venmo me"
Neil Armstrong and Apollo Mission Control:
As a kid, meeting friends locally or walking to school with them required a phone call the night before to set a time to meet the next day.
I walked to school for 12 years (uphill both ways as my kids like to tease) and met up with my cohort along the way.
As I roamed the neighborhoods toward school, my friends would be ready and waiting (or not, which meant we'd wait a minute or two and move along.) A very simple plan.
Today, texting would improve this dated process with real-time info, hands down. We have however lost our ability to just wait - to pause and give people time. (heck, I am antsy sitting at a stoplight anymore!)
I appreciate that a "see you in 10" or "go ahead w/o me" text removes ambiguity and frustration which is the best of texting, but I do have a soft spot for the frills-free days of "be there at the appointed time."
I'm sure I am romanticizing something that texting has clearly made better. There is, however, an irresistible patina of simplicity in the long-ago days of no texting.
Happy 30th to texting! You've been a real part of my life for almost half of it. I hope this post wasn't TLDR.
UR the bomb.
Link to the businesswire.com article: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221202005008/en/Infobip-releases-30th-Anniversary-of-the-SMS-Report#:~:text=The%20report%20was%20commissioned%20to,said%2C%20%E2%80%9CMerry%20Christmas.%E2%80%9D
Link to top 100 text abbreviations: https://messente.com/blog/text-abbreviations
Link to Morning Brew Newsletter: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/issues/latest
No comments:
Post a Comment