Text messaging gains popularity
Text messaging has students talking less and punching more buttons.
It’s changing the way students communicate.
For instance, take Paul Jacobsen, a junior majoring in business management: According to his January phone bill, he sent 1,100 messages, and including received messages, he used a grand total of 2,163 – all in one month.
The value of text messaging for students often comes out of convenience.
“I don’t have to talk to the person and I can do it any time of the day,” said Jacobsen.
And even with the high numbers, Jacobsen still enjoys receiving the messages.
“It’s like Christmas, every time you get a text message, you get to open the present,” he said.
Mark Zachry, assistant professor of English and chairman of the professional and technical communication program, said text messaging is changing everyday life.
“It’s obviously changing the speed, or the way we structure our day-to-day activities,” he said.
Zachry said, for one example, text messaging can be used for comparison shopping at different ends of the mall. He also said it can make for clearer communication.
“If someone says something and you didn’t hear it, it’s gone, but if you have instant messaging on your phone you can actually go back through your history of messages with that person,” he said. “You don’t get lost if you’re distracted momentarily.”
Zachry also said educators are now becoming aware of the possibilities of phone messaging.
“One thing that has opened up in a lot of educators’ minds, is the possibility of cheating, because it’s possible to transmit information silently in a classroom context,” he said. “You increasingly hear professors asking students to turn off their devices.”
Although the trend of text messaging is growing, not all students are proponents of it.
Jay Evans, a senior majoring in broadcast, said text messaging is highly overrated.
“It takes longer to type a four letter message than to talk,” he said. “I only use it to reply if I’m in class.”
Evans, who also works for Diamond Wireless, said, “Most college students use it irresponsibly.”
He said students will complain to him when their bill is high, saying they didn’t know it was 10 cents per message.
However, many wireless companies offer unlimited text messaging for the regular users.
Brigit Farfel, a senior majoring in broadcast journalism, said she sends more than 10 text messages a day and averages around 300 a month. Besides using her phone for text messaging, she said it’s pretty much only an answering machine.
“I’ll have whole conversations on text messages,” said Lisa Hicanbothem, a statistics senior who sends more than 100 messages per month.
“Text messaging is the greatest invention ever,” Hicanbothem said. “It makes communication so convenient.”
Hicanbothem said with text messaging, she can always reach her friends at work and they no longer have to take a break just to reply. And at 3 a.m., Lisa said she can send a message without bothering her friend, but might receive a reply.
Jared Ocana, a junior majoring in psychology, sends around 500 messages a month. He said he uses it for everything from conversations, coordinating meeting times with friends, or when he is “really bored in class.”
Ocana also uses text messaging to its fullest potential. Instead of typing a button three times to get the right letter, Ocana uses the system of predictive text, which permits much faster typing.
The predictive system, allows one to type simple and common words by pressing only the necessary buttons. While many students don’t use this option and Ocana said he used to hate it, he now uses all the time.
On top of the use of text messaging for student life, Zachry said it is being used in political campaigns, protests, for polls and will have more ramifications as time goes on.
-joelfeathers@cc.usu.edu