While I am not saying it’s time to gather your family for the group hug preceding the End of Days, I am prophesying the end of civilization as we know it.
Kiss 130,000 years of modern man’s advancement in technology and societal evolution, good-bye.
Our time on this ball of rock spinning in the heavens will have been all but a wink of the eye in time.
So long, 32 flavors of ice-cream.
Adieu, rag-top vehicles.
Fare-thee-well to all the girls I loved before. Because we’re getting close a great rift in knowledge.
In a word, we’re doomed. (Was that a word, two words or really three words, cuz two were conjunctioned? Is conjunctioned a word? All good questions, which, I am sure I won’t have time to discover answers for . . . dangblabit!)
Unlike those long-dead Mayans, I am not putting a time-line on my end time. The Mayans who said the world would end in 2012, knew they wouldn’t be around to be proven right or wrong, so they picked a date far into the future. I’m just saying — for the record, mind you — in the not too distant future all that we have strived for will have stopped.
And, I blame texting.
Yep, our destiny of wonderfulness will be laid to waste because folks are letting their fingers do their communicating. (That was fingers as in plural, not single digit signals.)
I admit I sometimes text. But, I am a terrible texter. It takes me what seems like forever to get a message out because I refuse to use text lingo and I actually try to spell each word correctly. I know, I know, you’re TOL (thinking out loud): Don, how’s that working out for you — your spelling skills suck! To that I’d say, ‘It’s not about me, stay on point while I prophesize.?
I’m extrapolating a little here, so HMO (hear me out).
Texting will lead to our demise because we will lose the ability to communicate effectively and on a personal level. I say this because since it started in about 2000, texting has been nothing short of a phenomenon. Here are some statistics I found to help prove my point.
Every six months since June 2003, texting traffic has increased at least 37 percent. In the United States, 2.5 billion text messages are sent each day. More text messages are sent per phone than phone calls. The average text messages used per month is 357, compared to 204 cell phone calls. In a recent study, almost 60 percent of those between 16- and 19-years-old admit to DWT (driving while texting).
OMG! (Oh my god!) We cannot stop ourselves. It’s like an addiction. Texting is taking over. Kids — teens — have cell phones not to talk to each other, rather to text each other all the time. They have codes that only other kids know, like POS (parent over shoulder) and P911 (parent emergency). They do it so often, they are adept at it and do it with blazing speed. They have conversations in texteze, not verbally. There can be 20 teens in a room and 17 are texting other people in the room, rather than talking face-to-face.
Humans are ‘sposed to be social beings, not technologically disconnected and isolated hermits!
How will this generation interact with others when they get to adulthood? Will they know nonverbal communication clues? Will they hear inflections in voice and know what these changes in tone mean?
And, what about spelling? Take a look at high school English test results and you can see today’s teens are not the best and brightest. I’d bet my bottom dollar today’s English teachers will tell you texting is not helping their pupils, and is really hurting them instead.
Let me string this together. If you can’t read or write English, and you don’t speak it much (texting is preferred) what will happen to our civilization?
In a couple of generations will folks be able to read and/or comprehend the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution? Classic literature; thought-provoking essays and manifestos; poetry of changing cadence and rhythm; lessons of history — will all these go to waste and rot?
If everything is QAC (quick and cold) and in code, can the beauty of the written word truly be felt or experienced? Can new thought or philosophy be given birth to?
If we cannot expand our minds, will the bounds of humanity’s heart shrink? Will we grow static, and if we do grow static, is that the end?
Or am I just FOC (full of crud) on this whole texting deal?
Email (don’t text) Rush your thoughts and opinions to: don@dontrushmedon.com