Yesterday morning at around, oh, I don’t know, say, way the fuck before I was willing to get up, I thought I heard my cell phone ring. I started to get up, but it didn’t do it again, so I said, “Screw it,” and went back to sleep.
When I did get up sometime later I checked to see if I had any missed calls listed. I didn’t, so I sort of forgot about it.
Sometime late in the evening it occurred to me that it might have been the sound of me receiving a text message, so I checked that and sure enough I had a text message from Kathleen.
However, repeated attempts to actually open the text message have failed, so Kathleen, if you’re reading this, whatever it is you felt the need to tell me – but couldn’t take the time to call me to tell me – I don’t actually know what it was.
I know I’m probably showing my age here, but I think that text messages are kind of retarded.
Multimedia messages make sense. I mean, you’re out and about, you see something crazy, you snap a picture/video on your phone, you send it to your friends. Fine.
But straight up text messages? What for?
Okay, so you need to tell someone something, but you’re not physically in that person’s presence. What to do? Well, you’ve got a telephone in your hand, and the person you need to talk to also has a telephone on him, so the solution is obvious: type in a message on your telephone and send it to his telephone so that he can read it.
Because that makes perfect sense. It’s sort of like loading a document into a fax machine, then packing up the fax machine and mailing it to the person you wanted to send the fax to.
Even with QWERTY keyboards sending messages on a cell phone can be a huge pain. So you’re an accomplished thumb typer; it’s still easier to type on a proper keyboard.
Besides, the odds are that nothing you have to say via text message is vitally important because, let’s face it, you’re really kind of insignificant and most people can get by just fine without immediately hearing, or rather, reading, what you have to say. I’m sorry. I know your mommy told you that you’re special, but you’re just not (Though you will always be special to your mommy, okay?). So just wait until you’re at a computer and send a damn e-mail. The world will keep turning in the interval.
That’s the other thing: most cell phones with texting capability also have e-mail capabilities.
Also, text messages often cost money above and beyond what you’re already paying, both for you and the person receiving them.
There’s pretty much no way around it; text messages are retarded.
The other problem that I have with text messages is that they further encourage the dumbing down of language via stupid abbreviations, a process started by advent of instant messaging (and, to a lesser extent, the titles of Prince songs back in the 80s).
Okay, fine, you’re in a hurry and can’t type out “you,” so instead you resort to “U.” You also can’t be bothered to type out “you are,” so you go with “UR.”
That much at least makes sense, but you have to understand that there is no circumstance under which “UR” can reasonably fill in for the word “your.” Sure, it can fill in as “you’re,” the contraction of “you are,” even though, ironically, when read aloud it actually becomes two words instead of one.
Of course, most people are too retarded to know the difference between “your” and “you’re” anyway (to say nothing of “yore”), so I guess my point is moot.
*Sigh* It doesn’t really matter anyway. I mean, the world doesn’t really belong to me, it belongs to all of the illiterate text messaging monkeys out there.
And as far as I’m concerned, they can have it.
So thr u go: itz al urs.
On a slightly more serious note, back when I took that Web 2.0 class one of the things that was talked about was the emergence of mobile devices and how they are becoming the preferred method for accessing the Web.
I just don’t get that. Sure, in a pinch being able to access the Web with your cell phone is great. But the preferred method? Why? No matter how many gee-whiz features you build into a cell phone, accessing the Web on a mobile device will always be an inferior experience to doing so on a full-fledged computer.
What’s the point of having access to full-motion HD video if you’re only going to watch it on a 2 inch screen?
As I was listening to the guy talking about tiny mobile devices that allow you to see 1/10th of a Web page at a time and how great that is in comparison to having a 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor at home, I couldn’t help but think about how this is really just a repackaging of an idea that’s been around for a long time.
Specifically, the death of the home computer.
People have been predicting/calling for this for as long as I can remember. The focus for the future is always on eliminating the computer (and especially local storage, but that may very well be a topic for another day). Why? What do we gain by eliminating the home computer?
I can tell you that there’s never going to come a point at which there’s a mobile device that is not essentially a laptop computer of some sort, that will allow me to do everything that a home computer does.
Personally, I’ve always been a proponent of dockable devices, small, portable computers that can perform all essential functions on their own, but can then be plugged into some sort of cradles that extend their capabilities, giving them access to bigger screens, full-size keyboards, etc.
That makes more sense to me that trying to completely replace the computer with a cell phone.
But, again, I’m probably just showing my age, and maybe someday I will actually eschew my home computer in favor of a wristwatch that lets me listen to mp3s, watch HD video, send text messages, do my taxes, blog, take and edit pictures and video, write a novel, watch porn, share files, shop, and cook a turkey.
Of course, it probably won’t tell time…unless you pay extra.
No comments:
Post a Comment