Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Poet's Demise - Text Messaging

Now once again, I'm going to admit, that I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic. I like the surprises, the highs and lows, everything. It's just grown on me. Chalk it up to spending all this time with my two sisters and my mom. But those dramatic displays of affection, no matter how corny, or how unrealistic were always my favorite part.

I've been coming up with new segments, and not really following up on them, but hopefully this one sticks, because I like this one.

I got the idea for this one, from a number of different places, and it kind of just evolved in my head. I take notes down in my phone, just random thoughts, or ideas and I see where it leads. Bomb$hell has sort of been my testing post for all these things.

Recently I was watching a show, and for the first time in a while, I saw a real romantic gesture. And I started to really think of why it seems that I have been seeing less and less of these things, in movies and in real life.

I used to love planning ways to surprise the person I liked. Understanding what they like, remembering specific phrases or quotes they used or just writing notes. So here it goes:

Text Messaging. Has taken the world by storm. Quick messages, whole conversations or whatever. The convenience of text messaging is overshadowing the connection of interaction and actual talking.

Admit it. We're all guilty of not wanting to talk to someone. So texts get used instead of phone calls. It just happens. I message in class when I'm bored, because shoot, I can't readily pick up my phone in the middle of lecture to chat about whatever hoo ha is going about. But I find that even after class, I continue with the same texts, too lazy to call or unwilling to converse for extended periods of time. Not that I don't want to talk to these people, but more that I'm just a naturally lazy person. But in far too many cases, so much is lost in these messages.

  • Emotion - In text messages there is no way you can truly express real emotion. Emotions are hard to explain, and many times unexplainable by words.
  • Length - We get 160 characters per text. At least I do, I think it varies between carriers but nontheless. How are we supposed to get anything really meaningful across in 160 characters. I think my last 2 sentences were that long.
  • Distance - You can text from anywhere at anytime. Well almost, sorry Metro PCS, you're restricted. Haha. But I mean, romanticism is lost much of the time when a text message conversation wins over a perfectly appealing face to face interaction.
Here's my point. Text messages are nice. I love getting them, I love sending them. But in the end it's hard to beat a real, at the least, long letter. Because well, look at it this way, you're not limited to words, you can go over and deliver it and have a face to face conversation. You can express, without limit, what you want to get across. Romanticism occurs when the effort, stuggle and passion you experience, is expressed in a meaningful way. The willingness and effort for the sheer emotion you are feeling comes through is romantic. Ultimately, texting it is a truly effortless gesture. There lies the poet's demise.

5 comments:

Messy Jessie said...

ditto.
Texting has become the zeitgeist.
We are an era of disconnected beings with a greater need to connect. We've almost eliminated emotional transactions all together - ATMs, Self-check out, texting, etc. All these things are convenient and "easier". But are we missing out on the real meaning of and joys in life? We should embrace being able to interact with others on an emotional level and not be so quick to think of new ways to make this less occurring. When it comes time to having emotional connection with people, we'll be so dumbstruck that we won't know what's going on!!


ok, enough blabbering, GREAT POINT!

gnawledge said...

haha. i txt because sometimes i dont know what to say to the girl. its alot easier, although it sucks because you dont know how the other person is reactin.

nar said...

I text cause I can't talk. At work cooking. I can spend 15 secs to text but I can't be on the phone while sauteeing pea sprouts and piopinni mushrooms nahh mean. But hey, its quick to text. It's like your time stops to read something that someone sends you. Takes 3 secs, and you're good. But don't get me wrong. It's always more nice to hear a voice and see someone eye to eye. But when we can't it's always nice to know theres someway we can be in contact.

virg said...

yeah but something has to be said when texting replaces phone calls and what not during times that texting isn't the only option. Which I feel that it should be. Don't let texting get in the way of getting real conversations in with your friends.

beetea said...

very true, but dang, we got aim and emails and many other technolgicical ways to contact each other. believe it or not, you can still get the butterfly feeling from a text...if you and your significant other are on the right vibes. oh jello, ill give you some loving =P