let your fingers do the talking
I read in the news the other day that the average kid text messages 200 times per day. You might be skeptical of that number … unless you’ve sat in a room with some of these nimble fingerers. They will ignore an incoming meteor before they put down their I-phone or whatever device their parents have empowered them with. Hell, I even see the folks now just as addicted, drifting off from our conversation to check an incoming text message.
200 messages! The phone companies must be making a gazillion bucks on our kids. They’re making nearly as much on their folks.
People ask me — well, people who don’t know me, ask me— what my cellphone number is. When I tell them I don’t really have one, they look at me now like I just walked out of a jungle in Southendzonia, possibly the Missing Link between apes and Cellular Magnon Man. They check for opposing thumbs, incipient language skills, tool usage. Sadly, I fare poorly.
But in my defense, I have a telephone. Which, I point out, is connected to a digital answering machine and a computer modem. I receive and send e-mails. I can surf the Web. I just don’t happen to do it 24/7. I don’t want to be that connected. I don’t want to send or receive text messages 200 times a day. I’m just not that social an animal — and if that makes me maladjusted or by definition, sociopathic, I guess I will plead guilty on Facebook.
You know, when I join. Right after I buy my I-phone. The day after hell freezes over.
Hits: 34
Ha, you found my hot button. Last year at Thanksgiving (!), 7of the 10 people at the table had their i-phones, smart phones
etc. right next to their silverware, and were texting as frequently (if not more so) than they picked up those eating
implements. The 3 without texting at the Thanksgiving table?
My husband, myself, and the 4 year old grandson. Sadly,
this year, at age 5, he has his own phone too. What is the point of a family get-together? Try and have a conversation with
someone whose brains are attached to their thumbs.