Double You Tee EFF?!
The Text Message has changed not only the way we communicate but recently the way we Market and do business as well. We sign up for Text Clubs, we get text messages for discounts and sales at our favorite stores, and we all know to reply STOP to discontinue them. Last week I got a text from one of my favorite stores at the mall, shopped, and held up my BlackBerry at the checkout – as instructed – to get half off everything I bought. Seriously. TXT RULZ.
But we’ve also STOPPED TALKING TO EACH OTHER as a society. This ain’t your Mama’s world. We DON’T steal the cordless phone to have late-night chats with our Boyfriends anymore. We push the “Fuckoff” button on our phones when a human calls us, and then we text them to say “Hey I’m busy lemme call you in 10″ – just to get sidetracked and forget to call them anyhow.
I am the GUILTIEST of the guilty on this one. My friends and I have exchanged written messages in the high thousands in the last month. My own parents pretty much know that’s the way to get me. I go weeks without hearing my father’s voice on a phone or in person, but I text him every single day. I EMail my mother because she sucks at text. My sister moved to Virginia… I haven’t heard her voice since Christmas, but I’ve texted with her!
I’ve never really thought of consciously changing this. Why bother? Everyone does it. But yannow, NOT everyone. And I have a nightly (almost nightly, sometimes life gets in the way of that) TELEPHONE CONVERSATION that’s kinda’ been illustrating the benefits to me of human interaction. And I have to say, the thing I am finding most beneficial? Most of us can say ANYTHING in a text message. But to be forced to have the same conversation on a phone is to force yourself into a situation you may be a little less than comfortable with for a bit. Pulling yourself out of your element of safety and having that interaction is the real deal… a throwback to the days where you didn’t have 10 minutes to type and delete a response to a question about yourself.
So I am making this decision to CALL my parents and friends a little bit, TALK to people in person… I just looked through my phone into the people who I text with the most and they’re first on my list of near-future phone calls. More face time, less text, and more direct vocal conversation. I might be making it in February – but THAT is my 2011 Resolution.
<3 NF
