63% of boys aged between 12 and 17 have never written a letter, compared with 40% of girls. 45% of both boys and girls consider letters “outdated” because they take too long to deliver, they’re inconvenient and they’re too expensive. (We Transfer/The Times)
So texting has taken over. Texting! How can you woo a girl with a text message on a cellphone? “lv u wanna * u” (I made that up) would not impress me were I a young lady. Emoticons? A smiley face? Trivial. At least with email you can express yourself and use the language (and a wonderful, expressive language it is). Now, if you don’t have an up-to-date cellphone, you cannot communicate with children, because apparently they don’t look at emails. Passe and old-fashioned. Thus we will be speaking a new language, cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in. Bye bye, Shakespeare.
When you massacre the English language with ugly text abbreviations one has to wonder whether everyone will soon forego English as we know it and talk like they write, in geek-grunt. To make matters worse you are not texting in romantic solitude, but driving a car or walking through a crowded shopping mall, head down, texting, forcing little old ladies to step out of the way. One day some enraged American good ‘ole boy with a loaded gun will shoot a preoccupied texter. I hope it never happens, but it is an incident ready to occur.
When I was young my mother stood over me while I listed all birthday and Christmas presents, and she stayed in supervisory mode while I wrote thank you letters to everyone, including my grandparents. I hated it and ensured my letters went as follows:
Dear Granny,
Thank you very much for my birthday present. It is very kind of you.
In other words, it was as short as I could make it. But make it I did. The point was that such courtesies were expected, and if you didn’t say thank you, that was the last present you ever got. Moreover, you were probably put down as badly brought up, which redounded on your parents as much as you yourself.
Dedicated parents, who want their children to think of other people and appreciate all gifts regardless of their expense, still insist on their children writing thank you notes/ emails, or (humph!) text messages to show appreciation. It’s the civilised – and Epicurean – thing to do.
Agree totally that writing thank-you notes is a necessary ritual that acknowledges the kindnesses of others. The crucial point is to teach children gratitude because someone’s has expended energy and treasure to make the little folks happy. That’s huge–learning that people have gone out of their way for you.
Agree, too, that texting while driving, walking, riding a bike, running a train, or taking a bath is a dangerous and even murderous idea. Texting can also make aspects of life easier. For one thing, it’s a tremendously helpful tool in logistics because it’s more efficient in time-place situations than having to make a phone call. For another, it can be a time-saver, you may not want to have a phone conversation when it’s a simple question of time or place or delay in traffic etc., in such cases texting can relieve worry.
There’s another aspect that I can’t quite explain–texting sometimes allows contact or a micro-conversation when it’s needed but when our psychic energy isn’t up to conversation. That’s gets delicate but it’s real. Epicurus would say– good sometimes, bad sometimes.