• by Marissa , November 10, 2010

A lot of attention has been given to the issue of texting while driving lately. And while this is definitely a problem, this isn’t the only negative side-effect of texting. Even just walking while texting causes people to be distracted and risk running into people, or even walking into the street.

Supposedly people who text too much can end up with joint or muscle problems in their thumbs. But all these risks are worth it right? We can communicate faster and more conveniently than ever before!

…can’t we?

The whole purpose of text messages is communication, but what if text messaging is actually making us communicate less effectively than before? I’m actually a little surprised they haven’t come out with cell phones yet that are strictly for text messaging and don’t even have a way to make a phone call.

I’m shocked at how many people out there would rather spend twenty minutes trying to plan a time and place to grab dinner with a friend than to make a simple phone call and figure it out in thirty seconds. Here’s a log of a recent text message conversation between my friend and I:

Friend: Hey what r you doin for dinner?
Me: nothing, you?
Friend: same, do you wanna go out and get something?
Me: sure
Friend: where
Me: I don’t care, somewhere cheap
Friend: k, I don’t want McDonald’s though
Me: ok well what sounds good?
Friend: I don’t care you pick

By this point, we had been texting back and forth for about 15 minutes, and I just decided to call her. Within another couple minutes, we had decided on Arby’s, at 6:00, she was driving, and I was able to give her directions to pick me up. I’m a little afraid that if we had stuck to texting for that whole conversation I might’ve starved to death before we figured it out.

So while texting is great when it comes to a quick, simple message, the next time you need to have an actual conversation with someone, MAKE A PHONE CALL PEOPLE!