Textually Active

America, as well as other technological countries, have seen a new craze. Texting. It has taken over the way we talk to each other, the way we spell,a nd the way we make cellular telephones.

Texting started becoming popular in the teenage scent, but it is starting to move into the older generations of people too. Instead of a mother or father calling their child to see where they are, what they are doing, or just to check up on them, they can now text them. Some grandparents have even learned how to text!

For those of you who do not know, to text means to use the number or keypad on your phone to send words to people, rather than calling and talking to them.

Texting has also taken over the teenage sex scene. Phone sex has been replaced with text sex. Teenagers find it less awkward and embarrassing to say sexual things through a text message, rather than saying it in a phone call or face to face. This is because the two people texting can not hear the other person's voice. This means that you can not tell if the other person is embarrassed or anything else.

Texting has struck a new dumb-downed thought into teenagers heads. It taught them a whole new way to spell. Text conversation, or text lingo, simply shortens words by removing letters and spelling words differently to make them shorter and easier to write, type, or text. Text lingo also uses punctuation marks to symbolize emotions. Teenagers use them to draw out different types of faces, hearts, stars, or even flowers.

The manufacturing of cell phones has begun to change due to the new found obsession with texting. Many cell phones are now being made with full keyboards, like for a computer, to simplify texting. Some cell phone companies have started selling text only phones. They are said to be for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but these cell phones are in the hands of many teenagers that have no hearing problems. Some parents have kids that do not even use their cell phone for talking, and they do not want to pay an extreme phone bill full of texting charges. So they purchase a phone with a text only phone contract.

Some non-texting parents are still not sure if texting is a good thing or a bad thing. No matter how you look at it, teenagers that are constantly text messaging can be a troublesome thing, or a good thing because it keeps them occupied and out of trouble.