Even before the advent cell phones, I’ve never liked having long winded telephone conversations whenever it is possible to just talk to the person in person. Of course sometimes that’s not an option. But I’ve been known to have been engaged in back and forth emails with a co-worker at work, sometimes in my own office area, and I just walk over and have a real face to face conversation with them, often accomplishing much more.
But then again I’m not a big fan of texting either when a simple phone call or a face to face conversation would be better. Texting is good for a quick message but not IMO for long “conversations”. I find it funny and sort of sad when my niece sends a text message to her teenage son or daughter to come downstairs because dinner is ready.
OTOH, in my department at work, we use group texts to notify each other when we are calling out sick or working from home or running late or sending a reminder about being out for a meeting. IMO that is much more efficient than calling everyone separately or calling our admin and have her communicate the message to everyone else.
And my employer recently set up an emergency notification system that sends out texts (or if preferable, an email or automated phone message, although about 99% have opted for texts) whenever there is a declared weather day (i.e. for hourly production workers, this means that if they get to work late or leave early because of bad weather/road conditions, they won’t be assessed attendance points) or for a late opening or closure, cancellation of a 2nd or 3rd shift.
This used to be accomplished with many phone calls; a plant manager calling all their managers, the managers calling all the shift supervisors and the supervisors calling all their direct reports and not being able to reach some by land line phone, or having employees call a special phone number with a recorded message that was often difficult to reach when the system was overloaded. This new system really came in handy when one of our plants experienced an electrical fire and was closed for several days last year. The company would send out texts to all employees keeping them informed of the closure and keeping them informed as to the progress and status of the re-opening. Being that I have a company issued laptop and the sort of job where I can, I was able to work from home and love the technology that enables me to do so.
I also have 8 great nieces and nephews and at Christmas time or during late March and early April when 6 of them have birthdays within a two week period, I send a private FB message to their mom’s asking for gift suggestions, clothing sizes, etc. and even imbed links to store websites or from Amazon and the moms message me back with yes or no (Santa already got that for them) or web links to their suggestions.
Sure I could call them and probably end up playing phone tag or have mom not able to talk because the kids are nearby, trying to describe the item, but the messaging is IMO much more efficient.
It is not about being a zombie or a slave to the technology or not wanting to talk to them (we often talk to each other, mostly in person – face to face as we all live nearby) but it is a useful tool.
That level of technology given to morons (which they are)...keeps them stupid. They can't spell, and they can barely string two sentences together.
One of my great nieces is graduating from college next week with a degree in History, with honors, on the Dean’s list as she has been on every year (and she was in the National Honor Society every year since she was eligible, has won several scholarship awards, got to the semi finals of the National Spelling Bee in the 7th grade). And she has been accepted into graduate school and as a paid Graduate Assistantship that will pretty much pay for her post graduate degree. She is extremely bright, very articulate and well read and hard working given that even with her scholarships, she holds down a part time retail job in which she has been promoted several times.
She is on several social media sites and loves her “smart” phone but that hasn’t caused her to become a “moron”.
You have found many appropriate uses for the available technology at hand, however you and your niece (congratulations) obviously are not who I’m talking about (unless she regularly walks into lamp-posts while “texting”...or “texts” while driving)
As Dave Ramsey says: “How’d you do that? Most people’s kids are freaks!”
However, although each generation of American youth is getting progressively stupider...compared to other countries, the latest crop is WAY down the food chain, according to statistics and testing.