Feb. 4: Frequent texting cheapens authentic human interaction...
I remember where I was when I received my first ever text message.
I was in a high school and I was covering an event - I think it was a cake auction - when the newspaper's co-op student texted me. Here is what the message said:
'where r u'
I had no idea how to text back so I called the student and told her I was in the cafeteria, where I was taking a picture of a cake that looked like a giant hamburger. Soon the co-op student showed up. She was rail thin and she was also a jazz dancer and she said her name was Mimi. I told Mimi that she had the honour of sending me my first ever text message.
Mimi was not impressed. "Oh," she said. "I've probably got thousands by now."
Then she waved to a guy wearing an Ottawa Senators jersey.
*
That was a long time ago. I'm not sure how many text messages I've sent and received since then. Probably more than a thousand. I don't think that's bad, is it?
Since I am very strange, I will look through some of my past texts and reproduce them here. They are in random order and there is no context.
- Wings!!!
- Spellforce 2, I think.
- Hey Jeff! Wanna watch the Flames-Jets game?
- Try rubbing vaseline on it.
- Okay, but I'm short five bucks
- Pepperoni, no cheese.
- I think my mom's flying in on the third.
- That's very sweet but 18 is a little too young for me.
- Not a Harry Potter fan. Sorry.
- Paul Harris is DA MAN!!!
- YAH RIDERS!!!
*
Like all fuddy-duddies, I am not a fan of texting. I can understand it if you're in bed or sitting on the john or watching a movie with Adam Sandler in it, but I'm in the dark as to how teenagers can spend most of their waking lives locked into their devices.
I was doing a magic show at a county fair once. There were these two teenagers in the audience and they spent the entire show texting. Okay, so maybe they're not into magic or maybe my show sucked, but I wasn't the only thing going on at that fair. There were Ferris wheels, cotton candy, a clown walking on stilts, this game where you could win a giant teddy bear if you could knock over three five thousand pound weights with a ping pong ball, and Highland dancers.
*
My friend, Sonja, does not have a cell phone. She gets annoyed when she's out in public with her friends or a date and they keep checking their phones for messages. "Why do they do this?" she asked me once. "Isn't the whole point of getting out supposed to be to get out?"
I agree with Sonja. Sometimes, I like people not being able to get ahold of me. I pity the person who can climb a peak in the Rocky Mountains and immediately long for a cell phone. Can't the view from on top of the world just be enough?
The cell phone will be there when you get back. Your friends will still be interested in you. Your social network won't die because you took a few hours to commune with God or nature.
*
The person who gave me this note title is also a writer. Once she and I saw down across from each other and wrote for about half an hour. We didn't say a word to each other. It was magic. So magic, in fact, that we decided to capture it on film.
*
After the cake auction was over, Mimi and I got in my car so I could drive around the county. I do that every Wednesday because it helps me find things I can write about for the newspaper.
Mimi did not talk to me. She was glued to her cell phone. I asked what she was doing and she said she was chatting with her boyfriend. I suggested that she might learn a bit more about journalism if she put the phone away but that option did not appeal to her. So I drove and then I got out of the car to take a picture of a cow and then I went to the Sandwich Patch to have some lunch and Mimi went in with me but she stayed on the phone the whole time. And in the afternoon we had to talk to complete strangers about their favourite hats and I told Mimi to talk to this one old lady who was walking her dog in the park and Mimi said she didn't want to. So I talked to the old lady and she told me that she had a hat that her mother had given to her from 1923 and Mimi stayed in the car and kept texting her boyfriend.
On the drive back, Mimi put her cell phone away and sighed. She said that she and her boyfriend had gotten into a fight because she wanted to see him that night and he said he was planning on playing video games. I asked Mimi if she was planning on going to journalism school and she said that she really wanted to be a fashion designer. Then she farted.
*
See, I never would have guessed that Mimi and her boyfriend had fought. I didn't see her texts and since Mimi decided she didn't care about me, I decided I didn't care about her and that meant not paying attention to her body language - which might have told me that she had fought with her video game playing boyfriend.
I drove Mimi home and I told her that I wanted her to write a story about the cake auction at her school. She said she would. She didn't. The next Wednesday, she and I toured the county again and she spent most of the time texting her boyfriend, who was home sick that day with a cold. She was mad because he wasn't returning he messages fast enough. I said that maybe he was in the bathroom. She said that no he was playing Call of Duty and that was more important than her.
I was going to say something but then I had to get out of the car because I was at a school where there was going to be a guest speaker who was going to talk to the kids about bullying. I asked Mimi if she would rather take a picture of the speaker or interview him and she said she wasn't comfortable doing either and I think she spent the entire time in the bathroom.
I wished Sonja was there.
I was in a high school and I was covering an event - I think it was a cake auction - when the newspaper's co-op student texted me. Here is what the message said:
'where r u'
I had no idea how to text back so I called the student and told her I was in the cafeteria, where I was taking a picture of a cake that looked like a giant hamburger. Soon the co-op student showed up. She was rail thin and she was also a jazz dancer and she said her name was Mimi. I told Mimi that she had the honour of sending me my first ever text message.
Mimi was not impressed. "Oh," she said. "I've probably got thousands by now."
Then she waved to a guy wearing an Ottawa Senators jersey.
*
That was a long time ago. I'm not sure how many text messages I've sent and received since then. Probably more than a thousand. I don't think that's bad, is it?
Since I am very strange, I will look through some of my past texts and reproduce them here. They are in random order and there is no context.
- Wings!!!
- Spellforce 2, I think.
- Hey Jeff! Wanna watch the Flames-Jets game?
- Try rubbing vaseline on it.
- Okay, but I'm short five bucks
- Pepperoni, no cheese.
- I think my mom's flying in on the third.
- That's very sweet but 18 is a little too young for me.
- Not a Harry Potter fan. Sorry.
- Paul Harris is DA MAN!!!
- YAH RIDERS!!!
*
Like all fuddy-duddies, I am not a fan of texting. I can understand it if you're in bed or sitting on the john or watching a movie with Adam Sandler in it, but I'm in the dark as to how teenagers can spend most of their waking lives locked into their devices.
I was doing a magic show at a county fair once. There were these two teenagers in the audience and they spent the entire show texting. Okay, so maybe they're not into magic or maybe my show sucked, but I wasn't the only thing going on at that fair. There were Ferris wheels, cotton candy, a clown walking on stilts, this game where you could win a giant teddy bear if you could knock over three five thousand pound weights with a ping pong ball, and Highland dancers.
*
My friend, Sonja, does not have a cell phone. She gets annoyed when she's out in public with her friends or a date and they keep checking their phones for messages. "Why do they do this?" she asked me once. "Isn't the whole point of getting out supposed to be to get out?"
I agree with Sonja. Sometimes, I like people not being able to get ahold of me. I pity the person who can climb a peak in the Rocky Mountains and immediately long for a cell phone. Can't the view from on top of the world just be enough?
The cell phone will be there when you get back. Your friends will still be interested in you. Your social network won't die because you took a few hours to commune with God or nature.
*
The person who gave me this note title is also a writer. Once she and I saw down across from each other and wrote for about half an hour. We didn't say a word to each other. It was magic. So magic, in fact, that we decided to capture it on film.
*
After the cake auction was over, Mimi and I got in my car so I could drive around the county. I do that every Wednesday because it helps me find things I can write about for the newspaper.
Mimi did not talk to me. She was glued to her cell phone. I asked what she was doing and she said she was chatting with her boyfriend. I suggested that she might learn a bit more about journalism if she put the phone away but that option did not appeal to her. So I drove and then I got out of the car to take a picture of a cow and then I went to the Sandwich Patch to have some lunch and Mimi went in with me but she stayed on the phone the whole time. And in the afternoon we had to talk to complete strangers about their favourite hats and I told Mimi to talk to this one old lady who was walking her dog in the park and Mimi said she didn't want to. So I talked to the old lady and she told me that she had a hat that her mother had given to her from 1923 and Mimi stayed in the car and kept texting her boyfriend.
On the drive back, Mimi put her cell phone away and sighed. She said that she and her boyfriend had gotten into a fight because she wanted to see him that night and he said he was planning on playing video games. I asked Mimi if she was planning on going to journalism school and she said that she really wanted to be a fashion designer. Then she farted.
*
See, I never would have guessed that Mimi and her boyfriend had fought. I didn't see her texts and since Mimi decided she didn't care about me, I decided I didn't care about her and that meant not paying attention to her body language - which might have told me that she had fought with her video game playing boyfriend.
I drove Mimi home and I told her that I wanted her to write a story about the cake auction at her school. She said she would. She didn't. The next Wednesday, she and I toured the county again and she spent most of the time texting her boyfriend, who was home sick that day with a cold. She was mad because he wasn't returning he messages fast enough. I said that maybe he was in the bathroom. She said that no he was playing Call of Duty and that was more important than her.
I was going to say something but then I had to get out of the car because I was at a school where there was going to be a guest speaker who was going to talk to the kids about bullying. I asked Mimi if she would rather take a picture of the speaker or interview him and she said she wasn't comfortable doing either and I think she spent the entire time in the bathroom.
I wished Sonja was there.
Comments
Post a Comment