I read in the news the other day that the average kid text messages 200 times per day.\u00a0 You might be skeptical of that number \u2026 unless you\u2019ve sat in a room with some of these nimble fingerers.\u00a0 They will ignore an incoming meteor before they put down their I-phone or whatever device their parents have empowered them with.\u00a0 Hell, I even see the folks now just as addicted, drifting off from our conversation to check an incoming text message.<\/p>\n
200 messages!\u00a0 The phone companies must be making a gazillion bucks on our kids.\u00a0 They\u2019re making nearly as much on their folks.<\/p>\n
People ask me — well, people who don\u2019t know me, ask me— what my cellphone number is.\u00a0 When I tell them I don\u2019t 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.\u00a0 They check for opposing thumbs, incipient language skills, tool usage.\u00a0 Sadly, I fare poorly.<\/p>\n
But in my defense, I have a telephone.\u00a0 Which, I point out, is connected to a digital answering machine and a computer modem.\u00a0 I receive and send e-mails.\u00a0 I can surf the Web.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t happen to do it 24\/7.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to be that connected.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to send or receive text messages 200 times a day.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not that social an animal\u00a0 — and if that makes me maladjusted or by definition, sociopathic, I guess I will plead guilty on Facebook.<\/p>\n
You know, when I join.\u00a0 Right after I buy my I-phone.\u00a0 The day after hell freezes over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I read in the news the other day that the average kid text messages 200 times per day.\u00a0 You might be skeptical of that number \u2026 unless you\u2019ve sat in a room with some of these nimble fingerers.\u00a0 They will ignore an incoming meteor before they put down their I-phone or whatever device their parents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5845,5844,5842,5843],"class_list":["post-16875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-12-step-program-for-smartphone-users","tag-cellphone-addicts","tag-living-on-their-cellphone","tag-text-message-addicts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16875"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16912,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16875\/revisions\/16912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}