Since the current surge in technology especially for no contract cell phones during the past decade or so, more and more gizmos have sunk their teeth into cultural lexicon and formed the way communication in modern society has functioned. The iPod has made CDs virtually useless. The Kindle has taken literature out of the paperbacks and onto the digital screen. GPS has replaced the atlas. But nothing has an effect quite like the advent of text messaging for mobile phones and also the no contract cell phones.
Virtually every cell phone on the market is qualified for text messaging, which as of 2007 is the most broadly used mobile data service in the world with over 2.4 billion users. In Scandinavia – Sweden, Norway, and Finland – over 85% of the population uses text messaging. It’s effortless to see why text messaging has become so common so quickly. All service providers offer some form of text messaging and the feature is even available on no contract cell phones.
The majority of service providers offer you a flat rate for texts, while others offer unlimited texting, while no contract cell phones often charge on a per use schedule. This allows almost anyone with a cell phone to communicate on the fly 160 characters at a time, without having to devote the time or attention to holding a verbal conversation when it may be undesired or uncalled for. Users can receive a message and reply to it at their discretion and typically needn’t fear receiving a text during circumstances where it may be improper to speak verbally.
So typical is text messaging, that an entire system of social manners has developed around the technology that is very different and stands wide apart from that expected during a regular phone call. Responses need not be immediate unless otherwise noted, and there is no harm in texting someone when they are incapable to speak with the intent of leaving the message for them to read later – a practice much more practical and to the point than leaving a voice message. Text messages are also usually saved and much easier to reopen for quick reference than a voice message, so that texts with important info such as directions or reminders can be used on the fly. Users can even send pictures and often time audio files such as music or sound bites along with texts.
Text messaging has had such an impact and is so popular among users that an entire language – of sorts – has developed around the technology. The strategies of typing on a small keyboard or phone keypad combined with the typically restrained character limit has resulted in a sort of shorthand English comprised widely of acronyms, abridged spelling, emoticons and other symbols that is widely understood by many users across the globe. The lingo even sports a consistency and popularity wide enough to warrant the presence of several dictionaries and glossaries cataloguing such terms and abbreviations. Many fear that such a truncation of the English language has done it harm, though whether this is true or not is unimportant to the question of whether text messaging has had an impact on society, and on the contrary really supports that conclusion.
