Textoculture – the culture of texting

Texting is very popular among teenagers and university students. Students on an average send around 2012 messages per month. Click here for the statistics. But how many of them actually impart important or authentic information? Rarely a few of them.
TXT2000 is popular particularly in New Zealand and is slowly affecting the rates of frequent phone calls. Phone calls are expensive so instead, people use texting to stay in touch with their friends and families. Researchers say that teenagers exchange one text every two minutes. Looking at this rate of texting, Vodafone came up with TXT4000 also for sometime but they cancelled it as most of the customers used it completely. There was also a high demand for TXT4000 and the customers wanted it back as TXT2000 fails to satisfy their texting needs. TXT2000 was devised for consumers who would not text so much and Vodafone would be at an advantage by earning so much from so many people. However, many users including myself finish our texting limits before the recurring date. This indeed is a high rate of texting and affects the psychological balance of the teenagers. 2000 texts mean sending around 60 texts per day which is also a lot. Frequent texting has lead to a decrease in the sleeping time and has reduced their concentration span. In the long run, it may lead to complete damage to their thumbs. Moreover people who text much do lose their ability to spell words correctly which itself proves the extent to which they are addicted to texting.
Moreover texting has become a culture now. Everyone texts and so these days, people feel uncomfortable in meeting friends and families physically where they don’t know what to talk about. However, they would still be texting their mates because texting gives them enough time to think and no one else hears their conversation. They can exchange any kind of information with each other and hence they feel safe unlike in reality where they have to think and talk. This however has reduced the basic courtesy among teenagers where they sit in formal social gatherings and keep sending text messages, thus ignoring the person sitting in front of them.
Texting is not bad. If something important is meant to be conveyed, it should be. However, it is a bad if it is interfering with the basic social norms and etiquettes. Teenagers and adults need to reduce the amount they spend on texting messages as this amount can be used in planning out a better future or career for themselves. Time is important and hence should be put into its most productive use.

Connection Lost

Earlier tonight I was chatting to a friend on Skype when suddenly the video froze and the dreaded screen came up, Connection Lost. I knew it was something to do with my internet so I immediately ran downstairs and frantically tried to fix the problem.

For a moment I felt a sense of disconnection.

Growing up in a world full of mobile phones, laptops and all the latest connection technology. I wondered, how much do we rely on these new technologies to feel a sense of connection?

I'm sure there has been at least one point in time where you've accidentally left your mobile phone and home on the kitchen bench and spent the whole day wondering if someone had been trying to get a hold of you. Our culture has come to the point where a sense of anxiety is reached without frequent interaction with these technologies.

Not only do we rely on these devices to create this connection but we also crave the connection. We've been so exposed, almost over exposed to these technologies such as the internet and mobile phones that we feel disconnected without them.

We gain comfort in knowing our whole extended network of friends is only a text message or email away. However, through this over connectivity, we have lost the ability to just sit and do nothing. The concepts of sitting and thinking or reading a book have been replaced with surfing the internet and calling friends.

I am a cyborg afterall

So waaaaaaaay back in week 3 when we had the lecture about cyborgs I was just a tiny bit cynical.
I thought "meh, i'm not a cyborg, i'm not dependent on technology.."
maybe i was just trying to reassure myself that I didn't have to rely on technology.
HOWEVER
the other day I accidentally left my phone at home..
now I'm not really a texting person as such.. I don't often have conversations with people over text.. nor do i really have to find out where people are.. I usually know where my friends hang out.
BUT
without my phone I felt completely cut off from everyone..
It was really quite stressful.
This made me realize how much I depended on this little piece of technology.
I was always slightly scornful when people said things like "oh i can't live without my phone" but it turns out, I can barely just survive.
I think our dependence on technology isn't necessarily a bad thing though.
Being a cyborg seems kinda cool anyway.
however, I DO think that half of it is just mindset. We are not constantly on our phones or ipods or laptops, but we like knowing that it's there, in our bags or pockets so that we can use them at will.

_

you are 5 and you have a cell phone? whom do you call?

“you are 5 and you have a mobile phone”, is a very common statement used these days by many adults and even teenagers. But there is nothing to be surprised about. These days, young kids own a mobile phone and they know how to use it including operating very complicated functions like operating a GPS or sending emails through phones. But is it meant for them?

Children own phones not because they have to make real use of it like make important phone calls or text messages containing important information. It is merely to show off to their mates that they own a mobile phone and use it as they like. However, it is very unsafe as children are exposed to a lot of information which they aren’t supposed to be exposed to at a tender age. For example, children are prone to giving their cell numbers to many people who in turn send them text and multimedia messages having sexual content which affects the mental health of children. Moreover, the personal and private nature of mobile phones makes parental supervision almost impossible.

Moreover, children are addicted to mobile phones. It has become an integral part of their life. The EMC world has published a report which says that children are addicted to cell phones more than toys and they can’t live without it and parents often cannot keep a check on what do the children do with mobile phones.

It is not only harmful to the child’s mental health but also to their brain. A research proves that children at the age of 10 or below are prone to ear tumors by 4 times compared to adults. The radiations from cell phones can also affect their DNA. To prevent the misuse of cell phones, a special mobile phone was devised in UK but was withdrawn from the market because it encouraged children at that age to buy a mobile phone.



Cell phones are necessary to an extent when parents want to contact their children or for use in emergency but children aren’t mature enough to decide what is right and what is wrong for them. Parents should be careful while giving cell phones to children and should take it back when the need is over. Also children should be made to understand what they should do and what not in order to maintain their privacy and safety.

Ethical Issues around mobile privacy

From Lookout, a mobile privacy "watchblog" some alarming privacy statistics for mobile applications:

• 29% of free applications on Android have the capability to access a user’s location, compared with 33% of free applications on iPhone

• Nearly twice as many free applications have the capability to access user’s contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android (8%)

• 47% of free Android apps include third party code, while that number is 23% on iPhone * third party code enables custom ads to be served and/or analytic behaviour tracking.

A user's location, call history and personal contact list is highly sensitive data, as opposed to web cookies stored in your browser. It's only bound to increase drastically over time. Here are a few "topics" to consider:

1. What implications does this have for mobile phone users? How about for advertisers and mobile providers?
2. Does this affect your opinion of favorite iPhone or Android apps -- in particular free ones? Should mobile app developers take it upon themselves to help reverse this trend?
3. How can we as users of this technology stop this violation of privacy? Through government, our purchasing decisions, or both?