They come in various shapes, colors and sizes. You see them branding different kinds of phones from iPhone and blackberry to 'stones' (phones without internet access).
Every time they make use of their phones, they're 5 times more likely to send a text message than make a voice call. They mostly fall between the ages of 14 to 25 though sometimes older, but their similarity in age is not their distinguishing trait.
This set of people have intelligently evolved their own style of communicating, usually in text form, they've succeeded in abbreviating words and phrases without losing meaning when interacting.
Text Generation, as I like to call them, presupposes the generation that has adopted text messaging as a way of life. The interesting thing about these people is their universality, cutting across national boundaries and every barrier imposed by ethnicity.
That SMS is the most popular data application in the mobile network service market, is not news but what seems to be, is the fact that we're seeing an emerging trend among the users. Such has become the phenomenal adoption of short message services (SMS) as a standard communication protocol that a culture has been woven around it.
CULTURE DEFINED
Culture is the total range of activities and ideas of a group of people with shared traditions, which are transmitted and reinforced by members of the group. It provides a sense of identity among people and the most visible evidence of culture is language.
ASAP is a well known term in text messaging and IMs, like other abbreviations and acronyms that have found their way into SMS language they've enjoyed widespread acceptance. This doesn't go down well with educationists who believe that consistent usage of these terms and abbreviations will negatively affect students in English language mastery.
Response from some of the text generation indicate that there's no cause for alarm as yet because they have learned to switch to conventional mode of writing whenever necessary.
When asked reasons for this form of writing, some say its a cool way of expressing oneself. My research findings however report that the limitation on the number of characters that can be expressed in a text message is 160. This in my opinion is responsible for the abbreviations to accommodate more texts.
There are insinuations that the major factor in the success of Twitter is its sms style tweets which already enjoy usage, though with a 140 character limit. Makes it easier for those familiar with text messaging to use the micro blogging platform.
As to the future of the text generation, the crystal ball may seem a little unclear but one sure fact is their ability to pass information almost instantly giving them the ability to organize people at short notice.
How do you become a member of the text generation? Simple. Instead of making that call, just send an SMS!
Eugene Nwoji
http://techsenseonline.com
http://techsenseonline.com
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