Short Message Service

My mother recently learned to text and she’s been sending a whole gamut of texts to my brothers and myself. Since getting her new phone which has a full keyboard, she’s been texting us almost everyday with little reminders and words of encouragement. This for me seems to be the fulfillment of a wish I’ve had for her. I used to get annoyed when she called me during the day to tell me one or two little things, to ask me a very simple question or give me a short reminder. Now that she’s learned to text all of that has been put into short sentences which can be received and read at my convenience.

Last night I had something short to tell my mother and instead of texting her I decided to call her. At the risk of sounding like a momma’s boy, I felt a bit disconnected from her, not having received a call recently. I told her what I needed to tell her and ended the conversation, nothing special and yet I felt a bit satisfied afterwards.

Texting or Short Message Service was created to send short (under 160 characters including spaces) message from mobile to mobile and we’ve somehow turned it into a massive medium for communication – using it to relay everything from meeting locations, birthday wishes, and even our love. At one point in human history (prior to 1844) a person actually had to write a physical letter, find a courier to physically deliver it and hope it wasn’t misplaced along the way. Since then, with the invention of each new medium of communication the speed, accuracy, and amount of our communications had increased.

I think that if we brought Mr. Alexander Bell back from the past and showed him how much we had done in increasing the complexity and depth of our interconnectivity he would be certainly impressed, but what he would be shocked about would be the degree to which we are somehow disconnected! The invention of the telephone gave us the potential to be connected with a person in distant locations, to be able to actually hear the tone of their voice rather than simply see the words in their letter. The internet gave us the ability to reach out to millions of people instantly. Text messaging gave us the ability to send short messages (and increasingly longer messages) instantly while simultaneously sitting in a meeting, dinner, movie, car (dangerously). And yet these mediums have not acted as connectors but as filters -- one more barrier for us to hide behind.

How many of us are guilty of having a conversation by text message which could have been clearer, quicker, and more productive if we had actually called the person. How many of us are guilty of asking important questions or important responses by text. The very fact that articles are published, en masse, that are teaching people things like “Any breakup initiated by any text is classless. No e-mail, Facebook message or Twitter reply can adequately end ties with any woman under any circumstances. Text messages fall under the same category” (http://www.askmen.com/dating/curtsmith_250/261b_relationship-rules-text-messaging.html) shows us that there is a serious problem here. We do not use mediums of communication to build relationships but rather to segregate relationships: we screen our calls, we ignore texts, and we block emails. .

It’s sad, but if we are a people meant to be in community, we are dying by our own devices – literally.