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Monday, March 03, 2008

The truth behind the text

When I was young my parents would tell me "drinking coffee will stunt your growth"

Ahhh, the good old days.

A realization I have had this week:

Some teenagers these days (including mine) have no peer social skills. They don't need them. They live in the world of text messaging, and MySpace, and Facebook, and Instant Messaging where all of their words are typed and if they are overcome with an emotion they don't have to deal with it...they can hit "delete", "sign off", or "remove someone from their friends list" and the problem is solved.

In the TEXT world you can "say" things without emotion even if you are crying and all choked up. You can YELL even when you are being quiet. You can LOL with all your friends even when you don't get the joke, or if you do - you don't really find it funny. You can :) and no one can see that you are angry, or sad, or scared.

In the text world...you can stifle your growth and "have" whatever emotion you want to have.
In the text world...you can hide.

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Monday, March 03, 2008

The truth behind the text

When I was young my parents would tell me "drinking coffee will stunt your growth"

Ahhh, the good old days.

A realization I have had this week:

Some teenagers these days (including mine) have no peer social skills. They don't need them. They live in the world of text messaging, and MySpace, and Facebook, and Instant Messaging where all of their words are typed and if they are overcome with an emotion they don't have to deal with it...they can hit "delete", "sign off", or "remove someone from their friends list" and the problem is solved.

In the TEXT world you can "say" things without emotion even if you are crying and all choked up. You can YELL even when you are being quiet. You can LOL with all your friends even when you don't get the joke, or if you do - you don't really find it funny. You can :) and no one can see that you are angry, or sad, or scared.

In the text world...you can stifle your growth and "have" whatever emotion you want to have.
In the text world...you can hide.