Has Texting Replaced Talking For Teens? 373
Hugh Pickens writes "Sue Shellenbarger has an interesting essay in the WSJ where she talks about the 2,000 incoming text messages her son racks up every month — more than 60 two-way communications via text message every day — and her surprise that 2,000 monthly text messages is about average for today's teenagers. 'I have seen my son suffer no apparent ill effects (except a sore thumb now and then), and he reaps a big benefit, of easy, continuing contact with many friends,' writes Shellenbarger. 'Also, the time he spends texting replaces the hours teens used to spend on the phone; both my kids dislike talking on the phone, and say they really don't need to do so to stay in touch with friends and family.' But does texting make today's kids stupid, as Mark Bauerlein writes in his book ' The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future? 'I don't think so. It may make them annoying, when they try to text and talk to you at the same time,' writes Shellenbarger, adding, 'I have found him more engaged and easier to communicate with from afar, because he is constantly available via text message and responds with a faithfulness and speed that any mother would find reassuring.'"
And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Funny)
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A refreshing breath of honesty. Someone mod this youngster up. Then chase him off the lawn, please.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, people have a hard time imagining things outside of their lifetime. A few hundred years ago, who could read? Now, when something like widespread texting emerges on the radar, it's like "Oh no, we're dumb. This is it."
I like to see articles that spread the idea of cultural change being positive.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Interesting)
I like to see articles that spread the idea of cultural change being positive.
"Feeling the press of complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are fearful of the thought that at any moment things might be thrust out of control. They fear change itself, since change might smash whatever invisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now. For most Americans, all crusades are suspect, threatening. The fact that each individual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common reluctance to organize for change." -- Students for Democratic Society, Port Huron Statement, June 15, 1962
Fifty years later, this same generation now looks fearfully upon social change it once demanded... And yet I see no fault in any generation we have a memory of. Such is the nature of the human condition: We fear what we do not understand, and we're predisposed to stick with what works instead of trying something new. I can hear the voices of generations past: "Leave trying new things to the young, right? We only have so much energy... Put it towards something we know will pay off."
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
A conservative is a [person] who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.
-- Alfred E. Wiggam
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part of Port Huron statement
Personally I've always preferred the original, not the compromise second draft.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it can be more simple than that. Many people, at some point, start to assume that everything was better when they were young to...cope with getting old. It's their way of dealing with grief when seeing many new possibilities that current youth has, and the "festival of youth" that happens around them - dismissing them as gimmicks and/or harmful. They can't find greater value in their current/future life, so they try to not see it in those whose life will be longer.
Accidentally, I believe realizing it and that current times ARE better then ever (and will be) is a large part of "not getting old".
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Always find it kind of ironic when these kinds of comments are coming form people of the hippie era.
Don't think it's restricted to that generation though, it seems to be a recurring pattern.
Musical tastes probably are a clear example of this, and it's probably easier to compare the "bashing the young kids' music" phenomenon across different eras; that's happened before, although the "bashing texting" thing is relatively new since texting itself is relatively new.
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The ignorance of general history, science and geography discussed in the Newsweek article aren't new things.
In the 1950s, recent history was what has happened in the last hundred years. Nowadays, thanks to what could be terms a cultural compression -- recent history is what has happened in the last decade. The older generation(s) like to point to this and say we've gotten dumber... The truth is we've just changed our scope. What happened in the 1950s doesn't have much (if any) relevance to our day to day lives now... What happened even ten years ago now has only limited importance.
Don't judge people based on thei
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Truly, your ignorance is astounding. Take a look, for example, at modern Germany and tell me WWII does not still have a profound influence.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmm.... The outcome of WWII led to the USSR, which in turn led to the Cold War
Wow, talk about having your history backwards. The USSR was formed in 1922 after the revolution of 1917, and Hitler's strong opposition to socialism and the USSR is one of the biggest reasons Europe stood by and watched him build the Nazi regime, leading to WWII. The USSR was on their way to becoming a superpower already, if they hadn't lose 10+ million soldiers and 10+ million civilians there certainly wouldn't have been less of a Cold War.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened even ten years ago now has only limited importance.
With all due respect, that's a horrendously dumb statement. If you really do mean that, I think you've just perfectly illustrated one of the issues with current generations!
Don't judge people based on their memory or caring for esoteric issues that might have affected life in the "distant" past (for people my age, that's anything more than about 30 years ago) -- they know just as many fungible facts as their older counterparts, it's just about a smaller period of time.
That's just the thing. Humans have been around a long time, we've done a lot of things, and we've thought about a lot of things. If you limit yourself to only caring about things that happened in the last decade (or as you later expand it, the last 30 years) you're missing out on the vast majority of the human experience! Art, music, literature, philosophy. If you don't care about any of those things > 30 years old, you're both ignorant and missing out (IMHO of course).
It's this exact same kind of myopic "ignore all but the present" viewpoint that makes people make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Moreover, to people who don't have such a myopic view, the myopes are just really uninteresting people by and by.
I'm in my late-20s. I'm not one to claim that certain generations are better or not, because as one historiographer wrote (roughly paraphrased) each generation is less than the one before it, the youth today are merely shadows of their parents. Everybody has ALWAYS felt the next generation is going to hell, and we've done ok so far. Or take the ancient Greeks who lamented the anemic memories of students who learned reading and writing. Etc. My concerns are more along the lines that I think that the MASSES of the facebook-texting-always in contact-always on the grid-don't have to remember ANYTHING because I can look it up instantly generations (of which I am a solid member) are prone to change society in ways I personally don't like and don't think are positive. Thus is life though.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true. But (anecdotally) a large number of people I know (no matter how intelligent) seem to have acquired an ever-decreasing attention span: people who 15 or 20 years ago used to read through 500-page texts will balk at short articles:
"tl;dr"
Likewise, those who will not read a novel if a film has been made of it - a potted version, denuded of all subtlety, is all their mentality is equipped to cope with.
I'm beginning to doubt the value of instant access to all content; it seems to me that it has a tendency to result in a smaller amount of time allocated to thought.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Likewise, those who will not read a novel if a film has been made of it - a potted version, denuded of all subtlety, is all their mentality is equipped to cope with.
Simply because you prefer one medium of art over another doesn't mean that it is inherently better. The important aspect is the ability to understand and express your thoughts and opinions in meaningful ways. I have friends who've spent hundreds of dollars on books. I prefer to spend my money on music, it means more to mean and I get more out of music than I do from books. Others get more from the art of film than they do from books, still others find meaningful expression in paintings. It doesn't mean that one is better than the other, it's simply that one connects with the individual more profoundly.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Every generation is considered worse then the previous...
20's Jazz Music and dancing will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
30's Cinema will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
40's Umm Historically I am not to sure. They just kinda went to world war II
50's Comic Book will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
60's Rock And Roll will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
70's Disco will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
80's TV will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
90's Web/Instant Messages will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
00's Texting will corrupt the Generation and make them dumb.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sorry, butchery of the english language DOES make someone dumb.
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I'm sorry, butchery of the english language DOES make someone dumb.
Did it ever occur to you that language is intentionally mutated in order to express things beyond pure literal meaning? For example, membership in a certain social group. It can imply social status. It can also be mutated to provide a covert means of communication in addition to identifying oneself as a member of a subculture. For example, my female friends and I often use invented sign language or body language to communicate in mixed company or in public in a covert fashion. Amongst gay men, the word "mea
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You both have a point.
You (girlintraining) are absolutely right about slangs, argots, etc. On the other hand I have to agree to some degree with plasmacutter--using a slang/argot etc in casual conversation is one thing, the INABILITY to speak or write proper language is another one. There are many, many people out there now with a complete inability to do either.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Interesting)
Again, like I said--completely without judgement--there's no problem with communicating intelligibly with other people, and 99.9% of people manage to communicate with other people. Unless you're brain damaged or have some serious developmental / physiological issues, being able to communicate with SOMEONE usually isn't an issue.
If I'm hiring you for a job though, I need to know that you're going to be able to (e.g.) write a coherent email that ANYBODY will understand--not just your personal social clique. If I wrote for technical support to a company, my bank, etc and got bank an email in my teenage sister's slang, I wouldn't have a clue what it all meant. Likewise if I got a reply back in old english, it would be equally unintelligible. Societies work by being mutually intelligible! Proper english--like it or not--is the standard. You can speak southern, ebonics, internet slang, whatever you want to those who understand it, but it's useless if the recipient doesn't.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Interesting)
And there's the rub: It's not a reflection of a person's intelligence, but rather their background, if they don't have a certain linguistic skillset.
All the reason more why opining the virtues of Internet-speak and text messaging slang is so appalling!
I grew up in the south, in a majority-minority area. Anybody can overcome their backgrounds, and people do so every day. It's tough, and probably not fair, but just the way it is. Willful ignorance is worse, agreed.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't communicate properly, you are limited to communicating only with those within your own group you can physically speak to. You don't have the skill to write a sensible document. And if you are poor and grew up on the street, you are going to stay there unless you can advance beyond grunts and slang.
It always amuses me how people who reject intelligent culture and identify with people of lesser ability are actually doing more to maintain the class divide than the ones who speak and write correctly. Ironic considering they claim "it doesn't matter".
Here is a real quote from a trucking website, see if you can spot the problem :
This guy is asking for help from people he appears to respect. How much effort went into that post ? He might claim to do better if he was writing to apply for a job, but I doubt it somehow. If you can do it, you always do it (barring typos), you don't just drop into illiteracy as if you were taking off your coat.
You might claim that because you can understand it, everything's rosy - not so. If you can't pay attention to even the most basic details in your off duty life, who is going to believe that you will suddenly start when you're on duty ? Not to mention that the employers start to think they can get away with dropping the wages because we're not worth the money.
On a larger scale I think it has to do with entropy. Recently we have had discussions on here regarding the apparent slowdown in new technology and development. From what I can see, back when education was seen as the thing to do to get on in life, people worked hard and fought to retain what they had achieved. These days, the generation who should be fighting for something are simply involved in destroying or at least disregarding what came before, just because they can't be bothered to take their hands out of their pockets. 'It doesn't matter' has become a mantra, one which I know you will live to see the error of.
Purpose of language (Score:3, Insightful)
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The evolution of all language strolls on regardless of intelligence. The only reason it has remained as relatively stable as it has over the past couple of hundred years is due to written language.
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I'm sorry, butchery of the english language DOES make someone dumb.
And yet, a thousand years ago such a simple and paramount word as "have" was considered butchery of the English language.
Face it, English IS a butchered language and there isn't anything you can do about it.
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I'm sorry, butchery of the english language DOES make someone dumb.
Woe is me.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no indication that any of this is making anyone substantially stupider.
hang around anyone between the age of 12 and 16 and tell me they're not dumb as bricks speaking in chat acronyms rather than expending the exact same number of syllables on the actual words or actually expressing emotions.
i hate individuals who refuse to use capitalization appropriately in sentences as well. how uncivilized.
Re:And next they'll want them to get off the lawn (Score:5, Interesting)
I take it you haven't seen all the reports about falling IQ scores.
No. I can't say I have. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect [wikipedia.org]
It only took Americans 10 years... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow... Americans took an entire decade on what the rest of the world has already been doing...
NOW its news...
Give me a freaken break!
pb (Score:4, Funny)
She thinks it's texting that causes that?
Captain Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sounds like we are prepping society for blipverts [wikipedia.org]
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I think the reason texting got popular was because you can do it silently in class.
I don't know about homework, it seems homework can be done while talking, texting would completely divert attention between two different things rather than doing both at the same time, people can talk and read/write at the same time, but I doubt people can read and write two totally different things in the same instant.
Re:Captain Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
The highest bandwidth way to communicate is face to face, one on one in close proximity and in a suitably quiet environment. There you have multiple parallel high bandwidth streams of communication. There is a high quality voice stream, facial expression recognition, body language, touch, smell and probably more sophisticated lines of communication open. However It can also be the most expensive to set up. It also can require the most preparation attention and sophistication so it probably is the one most likely to cause social anxiety.
The text message is very different. It's low bandwidth as hell and it has a high ping, so I wouldn't say it's efficient in that respect but since it doesn't require undivided attention from either party or the right environment setup or parsing of several high bandwidth streams it's very much less resource intensive. It's also more flexible and lower social risk since than in person. Errors and miss-statements are assumed very often as miss-interpretation by the recipient and can more easily be corrected or taken back.
The phone conversation is somewhat in between the two other examples.
So there are advantages and disadvantages to lots of methods of communication. Is one better than another? Sure for a particular use. Obvious example: Face to face is much better for sexing and text is much better for the break up :>
But does it mean that being good at one makes you poor at another? Probably not. In fact, being good at more modes of communication only widens your social reach and ability.
What amazes me about the ignorance of most people towards the topic is:
Screw the old people! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm getting REALLY REALLY sick of reading these kinds of reports. Texting is not going to cause the end of civilization or throw us into a depraved existance where nobody sees anyone IRL anymore, and we all are addicted to our technology. This is the baby boomers taking Huxley a bit too seriously. Here's some reality for you: Most of my friends text. Some don't. Of the ones that do, they have a much more active social life and get out of the house a lot more often than those who don't. Texting, and e-mail, and instant messages, is a way for us to all stay in touch with one another in a highly kinetic world where plans are made and broken again in minutes as things change.
Texting doesn't "replace" talking -- it enables it! Look at your average baby boomer: They usually have less than 5 friends, most of them are coworkers, and if they are married their spouse provides most of the social interaction they're going to get. And they rot away watching TV or with hobbies like gardening. On the flip, you've got our generation where having forty friends on facebook is considered average. I see a friend at least once or twice a day. I get more social interaction in the flesh on an average day that my baby boomer parents and aunts and uncles get in a week, sometimes a month! And texting, email, and instant messaging make all of it possible. How else could we connect with each other in an information-rich world where things are moving so fast and we are all so mobile all the time?
Conflation of issues (Score:2)
Personally I think it is a step forward. Furthermore, the decline of social mores towards self-mastery is a little exaggerated, and is an unrelated issue in any case.
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I think old people are concerned about a perceived lack of self-disciplined development, a meme that seems to have left the modern generation.
That's so much bullsh*t it's not even funny. No, what they're concerned about is that they don't understand that our generation doesn't need formal leadership in order to organize into groups and tackle problems. You give a group of 18-25ers a problem and say "fix it", and you'll have it fixed in short order. The older generation believes a stricter social hierarchy as necessary to production. Our generation doesn't. So when we attack a problem as we do -- by pulling in our friends, our coworkers, and askin
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Surely you don't think that you're part of the first ever generation to have no regrets? One can't grow personally without being grounded.
Re:Conflation of issues (Score:5, Interesting)
I work with a lot of < 30 year olds. I am < 30.
The problem with the Humanity 2.0 types that you seem to be describing is that those people who are constantly bragging about multitasking, tend to be REALLY bad at it without realizing. Sometimes being able to twitter, facebook, and look up facts on wikipedia at the same time is NOT the desired or needed skillset. In my experience, the younger generations (self included) DO hate traditional hierarchies--with good cause! I quit my government job that I enjoyed because the bureaucracy was just unbearable. They currently have a HUGE attrition rate of 20-somethings who feel the same way. Yet, I've also found that those who rail the most against the hierarchies and authority frequently seem to be the ones who need the most oversight to get anything accomplished. Ironic?
Your most telling statement:
And they bitch about people being 10 minutes late to their shift -- and think that's more important than the fact that they're doing about twenty different jobs, holding six conversations at once on several different mediums at the same time and doing it well.
Maybe you just THINK you're doing it well. Being late to a shift/work IS a big deal (if consistently so). It's pretty selfish to think otherwise. You're absolutely right that we are living in an "accelerated" world and that a lot of older practices are obsolete and diminishing as we speak. The inward facing solipsism you express is troubling though--ever think that there might be value in other ways of working, other people's viewpoints, beyond your preconceived notions of how the World 2.0 ought to work?
When you say
Our generation has an excellent strength: Balancing many often competing objectives while working in a very socially fluid environment
I'd agree and add:
Our generation has an horrible weakness: Actually getting things done
You may have seen several slashdot articles relating to this (first one is pretty interesting IMHO)
Habitual Multitaskers Do It Badly
http://slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/1245221/Habitual-Multitaskers-Do-It [slashdot.org]
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/27/2221228 [slashdot.org]
Re:Conflation of issues (Score:4, Interesting)
Our generation has an excellent strength: Balancing many often competing objectives while working in a very socially fluid environment.
That's not as great a job skill as it sounds, really. When I read your status report for the week and it says "Got 50% of the way through five projects" that's not as impressive as the older guy's whose report reads "Finished and shipped that one critical project."
Re:Screw the old people! (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble with your attitude is that once these "new" technologies are introduced the people who grew up using them fall into a trap where the technology defines their lives. Once Facebook turns into Friendster and you have to reestablish your whole social world onto the "new" Facebook are you going to be as wide-eyed and happy talking about the "kinetic" and "information-rich" world?
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HA HA HA ! Look who's talking ! It's not our preconceptions, it's our EXPERIENCE ! You think you know it all, you will live forever and nothing done before will ever come close to your achievements. I hope you remember all this in 20 years time. I doubt you will even recognise yourself.
As for the notion that giving a task to a group of 18 to 20 year olds will get the job done quicker and more efficien
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One of the great ironies of life: Every generation thinks it's the perfect generation. Their parents are too old and reserved, their children too wild and unruly.
They're right, in that sense. They just don't realize that they're the children now and the parents later.
Re:Screw the old people! (Score:4, Insightful)
A narrowing social sphere isn't because they don't embrace technology. It's because they're older, married, and have kids. It's been that way since the dawn of time. I ask you're parents about college/childhood, and I'll bet they had more friends than they could count. Of course, with the advent of calculators, we actually can count them now. Progress!
hobbies like gardening (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah god forbid.
Look I agree that texting is not making anyone less intelligent but texting is a watered down form of social interaction. A friend on facebook most of the time is not a real friend. The real threat is creating social interaction without the social connection. Where we reduce people to objects that we interact with rather than someone who lives and breathes.
Sometimes we "old people" see the big picture.... (Score:2)
I'm 38, so from the generation before "texting" came along. Still, I'm a big proponent of communications technologies of ALL types. (In fact, that's really why I'm still involved in the computer field today. I got hooked on computers in the 80's, with a Timex Sinclair 1000 PC that only had 2K of RAM and no modem available for it. It was interesting writing my own programs in BASIC and playing games on it, etc. etc. But eventually, I grew bored with it. When I upgraded to a TRS-80 with a 300 baud modem
Re:Screw the old people! (Score:5, Insightful)
Psst, kid, let me let you in on a secret....
When the boomers were young, they had really active social lives. They talked to a lot of friends. More than 5, and ones that weren't co-workers. They used to go out all the time and party too. Kinda like you do now.
Now in a few years, you and your current friends will drift a part a bit. You will likely move different places due to different careers. You will have kids. That keeps you really busy. They will have kids. That will keep them really busy. Your job will be putting way more demands on you. Theirs will too. And guess what? The next generation of kids will have more in the flesh social interactions than you will at that time. Phones didn't save them. Texting wont' save you. That's life.
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all your futures are belong to us (Score:5, Funny)
On another note (Score:4, Insightful)
"... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number."
-- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
People who say that successive generations are getting dumber are really just admitting the ignorance they have of the world.
And the best part.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the best part.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a small business owner I have noticed that those "teens" turn in to my employees and think it's ok to text while working and then expect to get "good jobs" for showing up on time to work. In fact; I have a 17 year old girl who seems quite reasonable, say to me after showing up 20 minutes late that she thought, and I quote "I didn't think it was a big deal". This kind of thinking is not isolated, to her , it is very common in this age range of employees.
As a college graduate I have noticed that those "employers" think it's ok to pay minimum wage for graduate level jobs, then make you train your replacement in india because its just too much trouble to pay even enough to allow them to pay rent through perpetual debt.
This is not isolated to just one employer, so I figure they reap what they sow with people not giving a crap about their precious schedules.
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Your example is why I don't work in the real world. I am the worst employee EVER. I have had a few "jobs" in my life, the longest was in the Army (no much choice there) and I have worked everyth
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As a small business owner I have noticed that those "teens" turn in to my employees and think it's ok to text while working and then expect to get "good jobs" for showing up on time to work. In fact; I have a 17 year old girl who seems quite reasonable, say to me after showing up 20 minutes late that she thought, and I quote "I didn't think it was a big deal". This kind of thinking is not isolated, to her , it is very common in this age range of employees.
Sure, but how many of your 40+ employees can key data at over 100 WPM, carry on six different converations at once (and keep them separated), and perform a rather wide variety of small jobs under rapidly changing circumstances -- and do it well? How many of them will self-organize into groups to tackle a problem without formal leadership? These are the strengths of this generation. A good manager knows how to put the strengths of each member of his team to the right problem, in the right way, at the right t
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Sure, but how many of your 40+ employees can key data at over 100 WPM, carry on six different conversations at once (and keep them separated), and perform a rather wide variety of small jobs under rapidly changing circumstances -- and do it well? How many of them will self-organize into groups to tackle a problem without formal leadership?
I'd put money on the fact that the 17 year old can't do any of these with meaningful results in a business environment.
Multi-taskers do everything poorly (Score:4, Interesting)
I couldn't agree with you more, and there was a recent /. article about a week ago on that. Texting just serves as a distraction in important situations, and isn't much different in having someone take a break every few minutes to go chat with someone at the water fountain.
Re:And the best part.... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Keying in data at 100 WPM is useless if they drp karakters and fsck up speling.
2. Most teenagers don't seem to be able to hold even one conversation of any substance, let alone 6.
3. Getting them to do ANY job usually involves wads of money in one hand, and a tazer in the other. Never mind changing circumstances, I'd just like to see one load a dishwasher without screwing it up having to be supervised.
Hah. Organized teens. That's funny.
Re:And the best part.... (Score:4, Insightful)
And there's the key. It isn't about texting or any other technology. It's about the fact that a 17-year-old is still maturing and still learning how to be a responsible adult.
You didn't always know how important it is to show up on time and be fully mentally engaged with your job. At some point along the way you had to learn that. If you don't remember not knowing that when you were a teenager, it's okay. You probably didn't even realize what you didn't know because you were, you know, a teenager.
"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers." - Socrates, 400 BC
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Exactly. I'm currently finishing the write-up for a study that shows a correlation between low conscientiousness + low agreeableness and high texting use at work. One of the key variables we controlled for is age. If you are less responsible, independent of age, you're more likely to act irresponsibly (should be obvious, right?). Irresponsible kids are more likely to do it through texting while irresponsible adults do it in other ways. Texting just happens to make the news because it's "novel".
Disclaim
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If you made her work late by 20 minutes, or dock her pay, I doubt she'd consider that "not a big deal". Try it :)
Re:And the best part.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no basis for this opinion, but I suspect that the trouble you're facing with today's youth is probably the same trouble your parents faced with your generation.
Re:And the best part.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a small business owner I have noticed that those "teens" turn in to my employees and think it's ok to text while working and then expect to get "good jobs" for showing up on time to work. In fact; I have a 17 year old girl who seems quite reasonable, say to me after showing up 20 minutes late that she thought, and I quote "I didn't think it was a big deal". This kind of thinking is not isolated, to her , it is very common in this age range of employees.
A lot of jobs certainly require punctuality --air traffic controllers, emergency room docs and nurses, hell even opening up the store on time. Yet often a demand for strict punctuality is simply a way to reinforce the boundaries between employer & employee, a way to reinforce who's in control. In a lot of jobs --especially the kind that a teenager would hold-- strict punctuality isn't particularly necessary for the job itself, so much as it reflects an employee's willingness to follow orders.
The emergence of flexible employee hours for positions that don't actually require strict timeliness demonstrates an employer's respect for his/her employees' time, and can ultimately result in higher productivity. This is a concept that is missing from the more traditional view that it is an absolute imperative that you clock in and out at precise times. Maybe your chronically late employee would be very well suited and highly productive in a position where being 20 minutes late actually isn't a big deal.
oh em jee! (Score:2)
txtn tns hv btchrd t3h en lang!
TISNF!!!
dumb (Score:2)
Last week, I was surprised to be playing Taboo [wikipedia.org] with well-educated 20-something American folks at a party, and I referred to "the Monitor and the Merrimac" in a clue, and drew a dozen blank stares.
But then hang around with folks over 50 and try discussing life in the web wor
Huh. Really? (Score:2)
It's particularly telling that the subtitle contains misused words; to stupefy is to shock someone to the point that they are temporarily unable to speak. Only a web dictionary confused about the word "dumb" would lead to a mistake like that.
Maybe the author should spend less time spinning suspicions into novels, without data. That they're apparently a journalist is somewhat concerning.
The Dumbest Book (Score:4, Insightful)
I took a quick look at that book on a store shelf once, and it smells of a gigantic "get off my lawn" diatribe.
First off, the cover comes off as silly. While I get the ironic imagery of Japaneese robots reenacting the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, it also lacks appreciation for the details for the themes explored in Gundam.
More to the point, there was never some intellectual golden age, during the author's lifetime or otherwise, where people had a broad appreciation for literature, art, and history. A review of the book on Amazon [amazon.com] gives many specific examples of this generation being quite a bit smarter than Bauerlein's own generation.
efficient asynchronous communication (Score:2)
The problem is the ease and frequency of communication. At an average of 2000 messages a month,that is one every 15 minutes. Even if each takes only a minute to read and write,that is around 10% o
Teens talk? (Score:2)
WTF?
Cheers,
Dave
Privacy For Teens At Home... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's just the ritalin (Score:2)
Teens are talking less? Why is this news? Is there a downside or something?
"Parents are not interested in justice, they are interested in quiet." --- Bill Cosby
Parents are always worried, it never changes... (Score:5, Interesting)
They always suggest we try "writing" to each other. Written communication is a "lost art" they would tell us.
Now everyone is writing instead of talking... I guess my parents should be happy!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the math: No big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
I really think there is no plausible basis to the assumption texting is replacing conversation as the prosetlyising of a generation of paranoid parents implies.
I think text messaging fills a gap, a need not previously met. It enables communication where otherwise we'd have kept our thoughts to ourselves or just plain been out of contactable reach:
It fits where you want to send a few thoughts, but there isn't really enough reason to waste someones time in a full conversation or you'd otherwise be out of contact.
Texting as an opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see this as a big problem. It's more of an opportunity.
We need phones that can help prioritize text messages. Some few you need to read immediately, and in some cases you're involved in an active dialog. On the other hand, anything from Twitter probably doesn't require immediate attention. So your phone should have both distinctive ring and some way to set (preferably without looking) your current level of availability - (for example "available", "important stuff only", "emergencies only".) It would also be nice if places like theaters could send out a local signal that phones recognized as "set to emergencies only".
To give "emergency" some teeth, charge a few dollars to send at "emergency" priority. Telcos would love this.
So get busy, mobile app people.
Re:2000!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:2000!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:2000!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the old fart's club. Your cabana is right over here. The metamucil is complementary, but you will have to charge the Rogaine and Grecian Formula to your club credit card. Our next group outing is to the Rolling Stone's concert. Don't forget that you are responsible for packing your own oxygen tanks and diapers before boarding the group bus.
Re:2000!? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you offer a No Kids On Lawn guarantee while they're away? It's very important.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My parents each now use 500+ texts per month, whereas at first they didn't understand the appeal of it (neither is tech savvy at all) and thought it was dumb to send a text instead of just calling the person. For casual conversations in
Re:2000!? (Score:5, Insightful)
For casual conversations in a lot of circles, texting has almost completely replaced phone calls. Actual phone calls are only useful anymore when something is time critical or the conversation would have a lot of back and forth discussion or details.
That's what a "conversation" -is-.
If what are you doing can be accomplished via texting it is either:
a) not a conversation
b) a stupidly inefficient conversation (as in 30 minutes to accomplish with a 2 minute phone call)
Texting is fine if you just want to send 'hey whats up' or 'I'm on my way' or a 'catch a movie tonight?' or 'which pub, what time?'
But people racking up 2000+ messages a month are usually just wasting time. If a text message exchagne exceeds about 5 messages, you'd have been better off with a phone call in terms of time, and in terms of building a real connection with someone.
The big 'advantage' of text message conversations is that they SEEM less intrusive. You APPEAR to have a conversation with someone whithout stopping what you are doing. Thing is, its complete bullshit. I used to watch TV/movies with my wife while she text messaged her friends. She thought it was 'good' because she didn't have to pause for 5-10 minutes to have a conversation. But it drove me fucking nuts with the little alerts going off and her constant clicking away on her phone. And it turns out that despite the fact that she thought she could do both at once, she ended up missing half the show.
Pausing it for 10 minutes, and just having a conversation works far better. Point is: texting is more disruptive and rude to the people you are with than takign the occasional phone call. Being completely interrupted once in a while for a couple minutes is better than being half ignored for 40 minute stretches.
Re:2000!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a 15-year-old daughter with a texting plan. Her constant texting -- when we're at the movie theater, when we're at the grocery store, when we're watching TV on the sofa, when we're driving somewhere -- drives me crazy too. I can't have a clear conversation with her when that damn thing is going off constantly. Suggesting she turn it off is taken as if I'm asking her to amputate her leg (and as the noncustodial parent with an uncaring ex I can't really force the issue).
I was always brought up that you don't answer the phone when you have company, unless there's some unavoidable event. It makes the person you're with feel like a third wheel if you bring out the phone and maddeningly punch buttons while they're trying to maintain eye contact with you and have a conversation. That's usually the opposite from your intended reaction in having them over in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Context is everything. Your entirely right in your analysis, based on the context you put them in.
But for an alternate view... this is how I use these two:
"I'm on my way".
I do this when I'm running late, usually with an eta either when I'm late or when I'm needed for something -- I get off work at randomish times so the time changes all the time. I don't need a response or a conversation, I just want to let them know when I'll be there so they can decide how to use their time until I get there. If it doesn'
I guess I'm just too old (Score:3, Insightful)
Texting seems to me to combine all the disadvantages of a phone call and email - immediate interruption and typing.
Re: (Score:2)
Where I live, all the carriers have at least on plan where all SMS's are free for numbers in the same carrier. There used to be plans where there we were allowed to send 1500 free sms's a week within the same carrier, only calls were paid (and, comparing to the US, calls were quite cheap). And believe me, a lot of people I know would spend all the 1500 sms.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm part of the 20-something generation. 5-10 years ago most people I knew sent at least a few a day, but it was more expensive (10p a time). I'm sure we'd all have sent loads if it was as cheap as it is now.
I now send less than 100 a month. It would be more, but I'm in front of a computer all day at work, so personal email + Facebook etc reduce the demand for texting. I used to send more when I was taking the train to work, but I cycle to work now.
Re:2000!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, I'm a current teen and my cell package is 250 texts a month. Needless to say I keep under that. But then, I also avoid actually _talking_ on the phone like the freakin' plague. If you text or email me, you'll get a reply usually within an hour. If you call me, depending on who you are, it may take _days_ for me to call you back. It's not that I have a problem with talking on the phone, I just don't like talking on the phone where other people can overhear my conversation - which as a teen is pretty much everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
I know one person personally and another person I know has a daughter who is in the 15,000-20,000 message a month range. 2,000 is not that hard, especially if you are sending out bulk messages. (2 pages to 50 people = 100 messages)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
About Orders of Magnitude:
Do you want one kick in the balls, or eight? The two numbers are within an order, so it's all academic, right?
Re:Hmmmm...... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmmm...... (Score:4, Funny)
*slow clap*