1443 Con Text

The text has caught on in a population that has scorned the written word for a reason. Control.
Before the text we’d been slowly deserting the written word. People were sending fewer and fewer letters. Books were hitting lower literary common denominators and verbal WASL scores showed essays were written rotten. Even with spellcheck, Grammarcheck, and instant copy-and-paste editing, people were just plain writing less.
Then came the text. And people started communicating more by writing. Sure the writing was terrible and littered with hashmarks and emoticons but at least people were doing it.
And people were glad to strain their thumbs doing it. Why? Because it allowed them to control the conversation. A phone call means you have to face the possibility of an extended conversation. Think about if you were to call a friend and tell him or her the content of your average text. You’d be thought terse, abrupt, and rude.
A phone call also forces people to drop what they’re doing to talk to you. And with caller ID they may not want to. You know that a text will get to them. And they can choose to answer or not, and neither of you hurts the other’s feelings by saying I can’t talk now, or whatever.
50% of emails are misunderstood. Short cryptic texts can’t be much better. But that’s balanced by the fact that a text lets you control not only the “duration” of the conversation, but what you say. If it’s potentially painful, you don’t have to be put in the position of thinking on your feet and saying the wrong thing.
You can con people. By controlling the context.
And bonus, when your fingers do the talking, you avoid putting your foot in your mouth.
America, ya gotta love it.