24 August 2012

Age as a Context for Texting

It wasn't the speed of her texting that revealed her age. Her speed was impressive. Instead it was her tendency to start texts with phrases like, 

"It has been terribly hot and humid this month. Even the Gladiolus look lethargic, as though fatigued from standing so long in the sun.
Even?!?! What am I saying? Especially the Gladiolus!
Len has a new scheme for managing his portfolio that involves an elaborate process of deconstructing Bernanke's pronouncements and then ordering the key terms by frequency of use. I don't pretend to understand it but fear that neither does he. This seems like a terribly risky time to short anything, particularly given the way his hip has been acting up ...

As it turns out, McLuhan was right: the medium is the message. But only if you actually understand the medium. Fortunately, she did not, and her communication had yet to denigrate into esoteric phrases that jettisoned vowels and nuance as unnecessary obstacles to the shared meaning of emoticons.

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