To text or not to text

This archived article was written by: Kara Heaton

Last year during the 4th of July Provo parade, I was reading a magazine to cure my boredom.   I was flipping through and found a game, which you basically searched the crowds for something, and if you found it, you got a certain amount of points.   As I read down the list, one in particular popped out to me.  It was, “Find a teenager texting, two points.”     I had to laugh, for lying in my lap was my cell phone, a text waiting to be read.   My sister, sitting beside me in a green lawn chair, also had her cell phone out and was texting a friend.   I looked up and across the street; with just a quick glance, I saw three different teenagers with their phones out.
Texting is a wonderful and great invention.   It allows friends to stay in touch, even when they are in different places.   It doesn’t require the use of a computer; you can be out running errands or shopping. If you’re somewhere you can’t talk on the phone, or if you just need to ask a friend a quick question, you can pull your phone out and text them.     Text messaging has pulled us, as a human race, together. But obviously, it isn’t all good.   Face to face communication is slowly going down hill; to solve their problems, people e-mail, instant message, or text. Texting in Texting in school has also become a large problem; teachers and administration are worried that students are getting distracted with texting and are cheating on tests.
Texting and other electronic forms of communication are making it so that people don’t have to talk face to face.   E-mailing is a simple way to avoid face to face conflict that can be uncomfortable.   But by e-mailing someone and not talking to them, your emotions can be either misunderstood, or completely looked over.   Sarcasm is hard to discern when reading it, unless you know the person well or they specify that it is sarcasm.   Sometimes your feelings won’t be completely obvious to someone else.
Texting in schools has become an increasing problem. Many schools have banned the use of cell phones during class, and some have even gone to the extreme of banning cell phones from school property.   Cell phones have been used to cheat on tests, which is causing numerous discussions about the need for teenagers to have cell phones in school.   Instead of banning cell phones from schools, though, administrators and school districts have decided that, instead of banning texting, they are encouraging students to use their cell phones. The idea behind that is that people should embrace the use of technology, not shun it.
Even though texting and technology has     brought the human race together, as I already said, it is also pulling us apart.   So while you text away and talk to your friends on the computer, remember that arguments can’t be solved over the internet and that you need to follow rules that your school has set down.