What am I missing out on because I'm not plugged into a cellphone every hour of every day, like the cheerleaders pictured above? I understand that there are legitimate purposes for texting - for example, my brother often sends work-related texts from noisy, crowded environments that prevent the successful transmission of verbal communication (and lack reliable Wi-Fi connections, so e-mail isn't an option). And I can understand the point of shooting off quick queries to family and friends about their preference of burritos or quesadillas at Taco Bell, or confirming whether the emergency management district just issued a zombie warning.

On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing the appeal of texting for fun. Limiting yourself to (usually ungrammatical) 160-character snippets doesn't seem like the most enjoyable form of social interaction to me. IM clients are one thing, but I spend little time on AIM or Skype in an average day, while prolific texters apparently grow angry if you go a full hour without responding to their messages. That would be a problem for prolific procrastinators like me! That's not to mention the annoyance factor of people who text incessantly at school, work, church, or other places where common courtesy suggests you should be capable of casting off your wireless handcuffs for an hour or two.

I apologize for the unprovoked rant. Maybe I'd be more attuned to contemporary youth if I could live the mantra of Be young, have fun, drink Pepsi.

I usually texting for hanging out, request and long-tine-no-see things. Otherwise I try to limit te amount of texting, since it's not unlimited. (Always thanks to StraightTalk for no contract and good service)

I actually keep my computer logged on to skype and Aim longer than i actually pay attention to it.

and thats only available as a means of communication to people i know over the internet, i do not find it to be a good alternative to face to face interaction.

even I know,
as a guy who claims himself to be tech support at a Nintendo franchise based fan forum,
as a very passionate gamer, of oldschool and newschool games.
as a person who has a massive amount of video games on a multipurpose game console,
as a hacker,
as a complete and total nerd,
as a chronic data hoarder
as a guy who repairs electronic devices himself,
as a guy who stuck his broken playstation 3 in a d***ed toaster oven and made it work afterwards,

You need to unplug every now and again.
disable the text messenger on your cell phone for awhile,
and get out for a few minutes of your life.

visit the farmers market,
walk around town,
talk to your friends,
go shopping,
ANYTHING!

i think i missed the part of the repair topic where you said you stuck the ps3 in a toaster oven to fix it. take my word for it that i'm in stitches right now

to the point bibby's making, though, i don't get the appeal of texting for the hell of it either. i mean, texting is an indispensable tool for communicating with my friends, since most of us don't always have access to something like facebook. still, i've always been mystified by why people text for fun. i doubt it's a generational thing, cause most of the people who do it are my age.

thats actually right here, Topic #1007 i probably played up that warning label more than needed, but that really did happen.

And i agree, i have no idea what the appeal of texting is.

Like all other tools it has its purpose. Please, hey, all my texts are free on my plan so I don't hsve to restrict myself to 160 characters anyway.

I dont usually text because Im often not that lucky or interested to go on my phone to start a conversation. Plus, I dont want to bother people if I do text.

But at the same time, its useful for a quick message send, but its not formal and isnt really useful for important discussions.
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Edited by: TDW, Aug 6th, 2013 @ 5:44 pm

I have no desire to use a phone's texting feature for the purposes of conversation. If I want to talk, I want to talk. I only do it in very specific circumstances, for example when it's late and I don't have any idea where my dad is, but don't want to make his phone ring if he's possibly at a movie or something.