TTYL

I just learned the fine art of Text messaging this past year out of necessity. Text messaging has replaced Western Union the Telegram and

speaking.

I go off on this tangent tonight because I just received a 4 page text message that made me wonder how long it took the sender to type. Are we so disconnected from each other that we prefer our machines to do the talking for us? Needless to say, I returned that text by phone call. My reply would have taken til midnight otherwise. Has phoning or email become outdated and quaint? Or am I so old that I am even questioning it?

On December 3, 1992, the world’s first text message was sent with the words "Merry Christmas," from a PC to a wireless phone. Today it sends everything from personal notes to detailed grocery lists using just the numbers on a cell phone's keypad. And I wonder, has this become a new way of cheating? Phone calls are so obvious, but you can sit at dinner with your wife and communicate with that sweet thing you have your eye on just by typing. God forbid you get caught. You can just pull a "Bill" and claim, "I did not have textual relations with that woman".

I'm sure it has it's use, much as the pagers did in the 80's. But people seem to be taking this form of communication to another level. Rather than for convenience of sending a necessary message, it is used as primary communication. This makes me wonder if the fact that we are now talking with our fingers is a new step in human evolution. Is technology so in charge here that personal contact will become completely lost? Will we eventually just stop talking altogether?