Has SMS Texting Gotten Too Popular

I was talking with a coworker a few days ago and observed him exchanging text messages with his wife. She told him about how she just went to the post office and how she was tired from her walk to and from there. She also mentioned that she locked herself out of the house. My coworker smiled as he responded to her messages, telling her to crawl in through the utility window in the back of the house. (Perhaps to make up for the disruption to our conversation, my coworker had read the entire exchange aloud for me.) I was surprised that she wouldn't call him about such a predicament. Lately, I've been surprised about how seldom people actually use their cell phones to talk. Are people that paranoid about exceeding their cell phone minutes or is something else going on here?

How many Short Message Service (SMS) text messages have you sent today? Have you sent any while driving? Have you interrupted any face to face conversations to read a text message? Do you feel texting while driving or having a face to face conversation is ethical or polite? Do you ever text someone to tell them something that you would rather not over the phone or in person?

It seems people are texting more now than they used to. An article from http://arstechnica.com states people text 32 percent more this year than they did last year and will continue to do so again next year. The price per text with most cell phone carriers has recently doubled to $0.20 but most people seem to have unlimited text plans or packaged plans so that doesn't seem to slow text messaging down at all. A friend told me she used 5,156 texts last month.

Wikipedia states that text messaging has been proven to be addictive due to its effect of increasing feelings of reachability. Modern life in America has ushered busier schedules, longer working hours, and, of course, cell phones. Even with the cell-phone holstered reliably at your side like a modern six shooter, most people are going so fast they can't drop what they're doing for a ten minute phone call. Being reachable is fine, but how connected do we feel when each thought we express has to be fewer than 160 characters and responding to a text message is chosen over hearing our voice?

Maybe the lower pricing of unlimited voice plans will reduce text messaging. I don't think it will though. Are people so comfortable with gadgets now that a person's voice intimidates them? Or, is it because we're too busy to risk a ten minute phone call? I think I'll call a friend and ask them. I hope they're not too busy to answer.