Introduction
A short message service abbreviated as SMS was initially created with very noble intentions. It was introduced to supplement actual phone calls in instances where one was not in a position to communicate verbally. Such circumstances arise when one is in a busy street or working in a noisy location. Also, some individuals may have the poor pronunciation of words or may stutter. Text messages come in handy in such situations because it still facilitates the conveyance of immediate information to concerned parties especially with the popularity of social networking websites. (Bryant et al, 2006) However, this mode of communication has not come without a price. Research illustrates that now more than ever society is starting to bear the brunt of this texting craze.
Driving accidents
Texting poses a danger during driving. With the introduction and popularity of cell phones, many states realized that preventable accidents were occurring because drivers were too busy talking on their phones. Consequently, they decided to pass laws that prohibited communication on cells phones while driving; in fact, drivers pay heavy fines when found guilty of this offense in such States. One can argue that a lot of progress has been made so far about these laws, however, a forgotten issue that can be just as dangerous if not more dangerous on the road is a text messaging. Drivers who frequently look at their phones and respond to messages while driving has a high chance of not seeing where they are going. They can easily ram into another car, person, animal or fall off a highway (Liberty mutual group, 2009). This could cause substantial losses to the driver himself or the second party. (Kennedy, 2006) No matter how important a certain message is to an individual, it can never be substituted for the preservation of life. Nonetheless, most drivers never think about the repercussions of their actions when doing this.
Eroding society’s social skills
Text messaging is slowly but surely eroding society’s social skills. Many people who are accustomed to texting find it hard to listen to other people either through phone conversations or through face-to-face meetings (Rheingold, 2002). There are so many aspects to personal conversations that can never be substituted with anything else. For instance, when communicating with someone one on one, it is always easy to gauge what they mean through their expressions and their tone of voice. Texting does not allow this to happen and this can lead to poor relationships between parties. Individuals may easily misunderstand each other because both verbal and nonverbal communications have been removed from the picture (Sanghun, 2010). Linguists and communication experts often argue that close to ninety percent of one’s conversation is not what is said – it is actually how one says it and the body language that the person uses. In this regard, a face-to-face conversation can achieve in one sentence what would take two hours of texting to achieve. Texting prevents correspondents from reading facial expressions or body postures and this heightens their chances of misunderstanding one another. Analysts claim that for every text message sent, there is a forty percent chance that the message will not be understood by respective parties. It is common to find parties turning up at the wrong venue for a meeting or couples breaking up simply because their counterparts sent them a contradictory text message. Therefore sending text messages is a problem for society if people cannot take the time out to engage and interact healthily with others. Aside from the latter, texting often allows individuals to pause and think about what they need to communicate to effectively portray their side of the story. While this may seem like such a positive attribute, psychologists have asserted that it makes people quite impersonal. People can choose to depict a side of themselves that is not a true reflection of who they are since all their words are filtered (Kenichi, 2008). Text messages deny individuals a chance of letting loose and being who they are in person. Also, because some people find others annoying, it is common to find them using text messages to escape or avoid engaging in real conversations with them. The beauty about face to face interactions is that they expose individuals to different varieties of people i.e. some may be irritating while some may be pleasant. Because one is already seeing such people directly, it then becomes necessary for one to restrain oneself or to tolerate the other individual; this is what constitutes a healthy social life (Rosenberg et al, 2005). However, text messages eliminate the need to exercise such tolerance as people can simply select who they like and ignore those things that they do not.
Acronyms synonymous problem
The short messaging service only allows people to send one hundred and sixty words per SMS. In case a sender is interested in sending more, then one has to compose several messages to achieve this. To respond to such limitations, consumers came up with a wide array of acronyms synonymous only with the texting ad chatting world. Here, persons substitute lengthy sentences with a few alphabetical letters. For instance, instead of saying “As far as I know”, a sender will use ASAIK, or instead of asking someone to “please explain that”, one uses PET (Cheever et al, 2009). A survey carried out in New York found that text messaging language is popular among the younger generation of 12-25 years of age as compared to persons above the age of thirty years (Louis, 2008). This issue has created problems in the English language because members of one generation cannot understand what such short forms mean and communication is heavily impeded. Several young people who may not be as enthusiastic about texting as others are also affected by this jargon because they may not be aware of new short forms. In the end, mobile chatting ends up being detrimental to the English language since text terminologies easily spill into regular English conversations. The problem is much worse in schools where students find it hard to express themselves in complete sentences or proper terminologies. Slowly, the nation has slipped into a casual and off-handed approach to grammar and literature. This off-handed attitude is a reflection of an even bigger problem- that American society is becoming a shortcut society. This denotes a careless manner of dealing with issues as people tend to prefer instant gratification over long-term methods. (Goggin, 2006)
Texting can become addictive
There is growing evidence to show that texting like alcohol and other drugs can become addictive. Although it might not be as excessive as the latter, one cannot ignore the fact that this is a real phenomenon. Sometimes, certain people text so much that it takes a toll on their daily responsibilities such as paying attention in class or doing one’s job well in the office (Richardson, 2006). Many students have reported dwindling grades because they were obsessed with text messaging. Similarly, employees may underperform due to too much focus on chatting or mobile texting. Some of the characteristics of these frequent text senders can be likened to elements prevalent among druggies. For instance, drug addicts often get a high from their drug-taking activities and the same can be said of these SMS senders. Also, druggies often undergo withdrawal symptoms once their drugs have been taken away from them and the same also occurs to text message senders who lose their cell phones or who have been prevented from continuing with their activities.
Conclusion
Text messages make people socially isolated as they easily go for this type of communication at the expense of more personal and real-time conversations. Aside from the latter, text lingo is becoming a substitute for proper English conversations and this is hampering the relevance of the language. Lastly, texting affects one’s ability to carry out their usual activities and this minimizes productivity.
References
Bryant, J.A., Sanders-Jackson, A., & Smallwood, A.M.K. (2006). IMing, Text Messaging, and Adolescent Social Networks. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2)
Goggin, G. (2006). The cell phone culture. NY: Routledge
Rosenberg, D. & Harding, S. (2005). History of the future. London: Duke Press
Kennedy, L. (2006). Man arrested over Cronulla SMS. Sydney Morning Herald, p45
Kenichi, I. (2008). Uses of personal communication in everyday life. Communication Journal 56(5), 346-365
Rheingold, H. (2002). The next social revolution. MA: Cambridge press
Louis. M. (2008). Thumbspeak. The New Yorker
Cheever, N., Carrier, E., Chang, J. & Rosen, L. (2009). Textisms, formal and informal writing. Communication research journal 15(6), 43-58
Liberty mutual group (2009). Teens admit to text distraction while driving. Web.
Sanghun, C. (2010). Rule of thumbs. New York Times, p 13
Richardson, M. (2006). SMS riot. Media and culture journal 9(1), 45-49