Monday, January 21, 2013

An open letter to teenagers texting-mad



 
Put the phone down for a second, teen texters--there are some things you need to hear.If you're in public humiliation and self-endangerment, sexting. If not, stopIt is great to text friends, but not as do the people makes you ignore your withTexting's efficient, but texts do not offer the vocal signals found in phone callsEditor's Note: Editor's Note: Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz are the sarcastic brains behind humor blog and book "Stuff Hipsters hate." Do you have a question about etiquette in the digital world? Contact them at netiquette@cnn.com.
young people of America:
We get it. You are coming of age have never knew an Internet-free existence. You'll never know what it is, I want to phone a friend at 10: 01 pm and politely ask whether it is too late to call or to bike to a neighbor and ring his doorbell with no preconceived ideas about his whereabouts.
You will not understand what it is to scream for your dad to come to the basement to settle the argument about whether a loofah or a plant or an animal or a can, in theory, someone's farts on fire. The humor of the scene in "Clueless" where Cher and Dionne each other in the hallway of the high school, mid-cell phone conversation, is probably lost on you. You have not yet seen "Clueless." We understand.
While we can't really play our adolescence so heavily on grainy scenes thinking, we are able to sympathize. That is why our supplications to you come from a place of wisdom and concern, not obsolete concepts or cling vice-like a thing of the past.
Really, we older people (fully informed that 93% of us you will find very to extremely annoying) just don't want you to miss out on the vibrant colors and poignant moments and slow-burn stories of the next seven decades of your existence. (That, and we are terrified you'll us superfluous, once you get the labour market).
With that place of loving care in mind, we give you our pleas.
Stop Sexting
By his broad definition--sending explicit texts--about half of 18-to 24-year-olds are doing it, according to recent research at the University of Michigan. And 28% of teens texting completely naked photos of themselves, according to a new report. But to quote every mother of a teenager ever, "if everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do, too?"
Seriously, are these 28% of people stupid. they are risking public humiliation they must later realize they want a business owner or run for Office (cough, cough, far too many male politicos, cough), and what is more, their digital dalliances meet the legal definition of child pornography.
Plus, everyone (parents, teachers, principals) near a new text can be read when it pops up on your smartphone--How mortified you will when your boyfriend his phone on the kitchen counter late? Play it safe and sweet sounding words only text in code.
Stop texting so much
In 2010, the average teen was sending more than 3,000 texts per month, according to a study by Nielsen. Three. Thousand. That is 3,000 times when your head away from your environment, fingers flailing, tongue protrude from the lower right side of your mouth ever so slightly, send someone a natural meaningless missive when circumvention you could be just interact with people (or nature or cityscape or whatever) around you.
The natural can feel, but when you are around anyone more than 25, in particular, it comes off as very, very rude. No one has put in the wait while the person 3 feet away from him or her cranes on a screen. And when the eavesdropping goes on for hours at a 45-second loop, in response to every thing a comment?
We promise, if you text your friend back only once to say that you don't talk now, nobody will spontaneously implode. If anything, your call button used finger pads will appreciate the much needed break.
Get over your fear of the phone
Our parents couldn't believe how much time we spent on the telephone in the early 2000s, lounging on pink carpet and twirling the phone cable while parsing exactly what Darren meant by writing and Janice the initials if the points about the vector on the Blackboard in geometry class. It seemed likely to be a colossal waste of time, moments we must have spent doing homework while wearing our dental headgear or something.
But the voice-to-voice communication is becoming a lost art, and that is kind of a big bummer.
Nowadays, only 14% of teenagers say that they talk daily with friends on a fixed line down from 30% in 2009. And 31% of teens say they never talk on a hard line with friends. Also 26% of teenagers say they talk daily with friends on their mobile phone to down from 38% of teens in 2009, according to the Pew Research Center.
(And, Yes, the amount of time that adults spend on the phone General is probably also wondering thanks to wondrous inventions such as seamless and ZocDoc that actually prevent us has to do with other human beings. But these are the teenagers--gabby, detail-obsessed creatures with the complex social structure of a clan of bonobos, which can spend seven hours together at school and still find material to cover in a telephone call from four o'clock in the evening.)
As we said before, the phone offers unparalleled access to the thoughts and feelings of the person on the other side of the line. Only through the phone can you elaborate on nuance, soothe a spurned friend on the right way and really get to the heart of that beezy Jocelyn asked why Greg to turnaround when everyone knew you were planning to.
We also ensure that your not using the telephone that you going to be shocks means when you get in the world of office, adding to our bursting Inboxes instead of picking up the damn phone every now and then. Our end goals can be selfish, but we want the best for everyone. Even ADD-addled, lightning-fingered, know-it-all you.
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