Can digital technology become any more entwined with the way we live than it already is?
Yesterday, on a walk with my sister, she expressed bewilderment about her husband Facebook-ing their teen son from the other room. “I mean, what happened to the phone and texting?” my sister lamented.
“Wait a sec. They were in the same house, and you are questioning why they used Facebook and not a text?” I asked her. That’s when it hit me.
Maybe human vocal chords will become evolutionary baggage and “the new appendix.”
Seriously. This textual revolution is insane, and I’m a part of the textual assault. I’m not even sure I miss old fashioned phone conversations! Your pronunciation of ‘neither’ is no longer an issue, and if you can only spell phonetically you’re suddenly cool.
Life without my phone’s keyboard is becoming unfathomable. Many of us get right to the point in our texts, and life is streamlined (grocery list swiftly beamed to spouse/15-year-old grounded via Facebook/party invitation declined with minimal awkwardness).
Texting told us to shut up, and many of us have. We’ve gone chord-less. Do you suppose it’s just a coincidence that screamo and emo, music genres popular with adolescents and Generation Text, seem designed to eradicate vocal chords too? Sure, it’s tricky to decode a lead screamer’s lyrics. But you’re just one google away from screeching along and wrecking those chords in no time. I smell conspiracy.
Recently at church, the pastor announced an upcoming meeting where members would be provided an iPhone. Texting would allow church members to anonymously respond to questions posed from the pulpit for swift, instant poll results. Holy textual satisfaction! (Are you reading this, Vatican? Isn’t the forgiving of sins whispered into a booth a tad outmoded? Confessions via text messaging could be gloriously convenient for priests and your flock.)
BTW, is sleep really the new sex? Really? Or is text the new sex?
Fingertip chats are not like live conversations. There are no crying kids in the background, no crunching of nacho eating through the receiver. Texts lack non-verbals, tone, inflection, and at times, think-it-through-ness. Urbandictionary calls this tendency of the brain to work slower than the fingertips ‘textual tourettes’.
Text has limits. Most of us lack the ambition to invent sarcasm inflections or to insert “choked up on last word” while the human voice conveys layers of meaning effortlessly. Acrostics, caps, and emoticons enhance understanding, but OMG you risk coming off as a seventh grader or even psycho if you over-use them.
Speaking of emoticons, perhaps facial expressions will also become obsolete. We could carry handheld emo transmitters and flash each other smiles or frowns (of course Botox will have to take partial credit for such a socio-cultural turn).
Yeah, it’s fun to poke Grandma online, but family members NOT over the river and through the woods now text each other which is getting weird. Many of us are engaged in more text conversations with more people than ever, but I’m not sure anyone realizes how this shift is truly affecting us.
In the future, will we giggle about extinct social networks and “those lost years of productivity for the work force when meaningful conversation was replaced with banter and the obsessive broadcasting of mood states?” Or will we see the revolution as a textual healing as we gather in the family room to view the 15th season of “The Office” while mutely texting “LMAO” across the sofa?
