Technology vs. Verbal Communication
Evan Fridl
Technology vs. Verbal Communication
Technology after the industrial revolution has had an exponential growth, and the last thirty years has had the most rapid rate of growth ever in history. We’re now using devices that seemed impossible only half a century ago. With the birth of the cell phone, communication between individuals has become instant and very convenient. Although the technology is great, it has several drawbacks in many different ways. The article that I would like to analyze is The Pleasures of the Text by Charles McGrath.
The author Charles McGrath had some valid arguments regarding his article. His first point was that text messaging has greatly changed the way we speak with each other. The cell phone was initially only able to send and receive phone calls, but as the technology developed we are now able to send instant text messages which are very easy and really nice in some situations. McGrath stated that shorthand contractions, homophones, emoticons, and acronyms are the common language of text messaging. I do agree when it comes to emoticons and some commonly known acronyms being used consistently, but I believe homophones are not as commonly used by people with the development of the T9-Word capability and the keyboard on phones. I think the author of this article greatly exaggerated the truth as to what text messages look like and how much people actually shorten up their words and sentences. His example was “a text-message version of ‘Paradise Lost’ disseminated by some scholars in England: ‘Devl Kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war . pd’off wiv god so corrupts man (md by god) wiv apel. Devl stays serpnt 4hole life&man ruined. Woe un2mnkind.” Who in the heck would write a text like that, that thing gave me a headache just looking at it, it took a lot more time reading it then it would have saved writing it, I mean geez.
Another quote from the article that made me disagree with the author was “There
Technology vs. Verbal Communication
Technology after the industrial revolution has had an exponential growth, and the last thirty years has had the most rapid rate of growth ever in history. We’re now using devices that seemed impossible only half a century ago. With the birth of the cell phone, communication between individuals has become instant and very convenient. Although the technology is great, it has several drawbacks in many different ways. The article that I would like to analyze is The Pleasures of the Text by Charles McGrath.
The author Charles McGrath had some valid arguments regarding his article. His first point was that text messaging has greatly changed the way we speak with each other. The cell phone was initially only able to send and receive phone calls, but as the technology developed we are now able to send instant text messages which are very easy and really nice in some situations. McGrath stated that shorthand contractions, homophones, emoticons, and acronyms are the common language of text messaging. I do agree when it comes to emoticons and some commonly known acronyms being used consistently, but I believe homophones are not as commonly used by people with the development of the T9-Word capability and the keyboard on phones. I think the author of this article greatly exaggerated the truth as to what text messages look like and how much people actually shorten up their words and sentences. His example was “a text-message version of ‘Paradise Lost’ disseminated by some scholars in England: ‘Devl Kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war . pd’off wiv god so corrupts man (md by god) wiv apel. Devl stays serpnt 4hole life&man ruined. Woe un2mnkind.” Who in the heck would write a text like that, that thing gave me a headache just looking at it, it took a lot more time reading it then it would have saved writing it, I mean geez.
Another quote from the article that made me disagree with the author was “There