My sister texts endlessly.  She’s eighteen.  Every second she’s popping out her phone and sending some message about something on her mind, her every thought.  Most of them are not groundbreaking, of course.  I’m sure they are extremely meaningful to her, since she took the time to send the message.

I guess the interest of texting is extremely popular for teenage girls, and though it bothers me if I’m hanging out with someone and they start texting someone else not in the room, if they are truly present with me.  I can’t explain if this is a strange phenomenon, taking offense at this.  I know that if I was visiting someone’s house that if they received a phone call on their home phone or cellphone, I’d expect them to take a message and call them back later.  When I confronted her about this, she said, we were waiting, we weren’t doing anything, as a game began to load.  My reply was: “Well, can’t we make conversation?”

I know the value of multitasking, when you try to accomplish more than one thing at the same time.  In the old days, it might consist of making a pie while doing laundry while listening to music.  Later it became applied to computing when you were listening to music on your computer, playing a game and sending an email.  Now, are we multitasking our friendships.  So many friends, family members, acquaintances, and not enough time in the day.  How can we manage?  Now with cell phones and texting and Twitter, we can do more, keep more connected.  While my sister is spending time with her big brother she is also keeping up with her scattering of friends around the states, maybe even world (and she finds comfort in knowing she is talking to people all over the states).

It’s for these reasons that the young are targeted by advertisers.  Word of mouth spreads the information about something cool, popular or interesting.  These texters, spreaders of the information are great for promoting a brand, and they don’t even realize they are doing it.  If they love a song or a store or a product, it’s only natural that they will talk about it a lot, get the word out.

Leads me to think about Twitter.  I hear it praised so often for its value, but it’s just another form of texting, but for an older crowd.  It allows you to follow the texts of a particular group of people–selective texting.  I can’t fault any of these technologies: they are ingenious and great applications of technology.  Maybe I’m less thrilled about them because I’m not particularly a people person: I’d prefer no talk over small talk, and 90% if not more of the conversation taking place via text or on Twitter is small talk.  (I sure hope people are not talking about serious matters via email, text or Twitter.  You either do it in person or on the telephone, or you are asking for hurt feelings.)  I’m just wondering if this is positive direction: are we favoring quantity over quality?  are we treating people better?  is all of this information improving our quality of life?  You might think that I’m saying no, but who am I to judge?  I’m no saint.