Texting IN – Emails OUT

My research among teens suggests that emails are becoming passé and text messaging is their latest fad. I say “fad” because youth are fickle and are into the latest trends, especially if they are in the forefront of using novel technologies that adults are ignorant of or find uncomfortable to use. I am specifically talking about the majority of the under 18 crowd. This change has become apparent to me when the emails I’ve been sending out – often with important info that the kids want to have – are not read or answered in a week’s time. Frustrated, I would call and if I got through, they would say “we tried to send you text messages” but I would apologize and say that I don’t have “it.” Am I out of the loop or what?

Okay, okay… I know what you are thinking. Maybe they just don’t want to talk with Dr. John. But in the last two years, I have discovered there has been a seismic shift in teen communication. They now rely on texting to send quick messages to touch base with friends throughout the day.

So why have emails fallen out of favor so fast with the younger set?

Well, you have to be online, usually at a computer, to have access to the internet. Some hand held devices like Blackberries and iPhones can give you access to your emails but you are paying a lot extra for that service. And sometimes when you open an email, the sender receives notification that you have seen it, so…

A few teens suggested that they see emails as being more adult-oriented. Their parents use them for work; schools send out official messages; and there’s way too much spam geared to older audiences. One mentioned she’s gets regular emails from her grandmother who expect newsy answers back in well-written English -- syntax, spelling et al. Ugh!

Which brings us to another point – texting uses a short-hand version of teen talk. At YAMI-U, the organizers passed out 2 pages of simplified text talk with the well-known “lol” for “laugh out loud,” but also including brb (be right back) and g2g (got to go). They favor lower case type “to save time.” Simplifying wordy sentences to express yourself succinctly is a key reason why text is so popular. Importantly, it only takes seconds, not minutes.

And it can be done in class under the teacher’s nose – literally. A number of students hide it under the desktop or a notebook and text away. Oh, did I mention text messaging is a widespread way of cheating? I’ve yet to hear a teen say they don’t think it exists in their school. I see more youth in a darkened movie theater sending out messages on faint-lit screens like lighters at a concert – except now audiences hold up their cell phones like they once held up candles and flashlights at Woodstock.

How much is text messaging used? At one high school, I was interviewing a Senior about this subject. Within the space of a few minutes, she answered three messages. When I asked how many she normally received in a day, she smirked and said she had already had 371. And it was only 11 am! Her boyfriend said he gets about 200 or so but that since he played baseball, he didn’t have as much time to text. I have heard other numbers but none were less than 75 daily (I think I am productive when I can answer 30-40 emails and send out 40-50). Email messaging it appears, is going the way of the dinosaur at least when young. In short, texting allows for very quick and snappy exchanges -- until they get older and need to communicate more complicated thoughts and feelings.

So how does this mode affect boyfriend/girlfriend relationships? Texting is used for love talk: <3 (heart) and 143 (I love you). As of this moment, there exists no way to text “I wanna have sex with you” but give that another couple of months. I was surprised to learn that even intimate phoning among lovers and sex partners has been surpassed by texting. A number of teens say they find open-ended calls problematic because “Who hangs up first?” One guy said he didn’t like being put on the spot by girls who insist he tells them, “I love you.” Yet he admitted that he does like talking to his gfs (girlfriends) on his cell in bed to get off before sleeping. That is pretty hard to do with acronym-based text but it is probably the way of the future. How soon before enterprising entrepreneurs with an eye to the youth market will come out with an online handbook for text talk? (Some cell phones are providing shortcuts like“T9,” etc.).

In a future blog, I’ll discuss teens communicating by Facebook, MySpace, Twittering and IM.

I’m going to buy a Blackberry and learn how to text proficiently if I can get my thumbs to hit the right keys. Over the next six months, TeenAIDS will be moving more into this sphere with a better interactive website that will increase our texting ability to stay in touch with PeerCorps teens and promoting global and local activism. Stay tuned.

OMG! I meant to type tbc (to be continued).