The Text Message Era

Coming in to college I never had a cell phone that was capable of sending and receiving text messages. My parents would say that text messages are a waste of money and that if you wanted to talk to someone you should just call them. Before I left home for the first quarter my parents finally came around added on the text message option to our plan. I quickly learned that I was behind the eight ball when it came to text messaging. All of my friends from back had been sending texts for three to four years now and I’m sure the vast majority of the kids on campus had been as well. I remember getting my first message an it saying “so your finally able to receive messages now lol.” I had no idea what “lol” and did not know the full meaning of that message. I quickly learned that “lol” was a very common phrase used in text messaging and that it means laugh out loudly. This was just the beginning of many confusing phrases that would haunt me until I became acquitted with the text message environment. I had to learn phrases such as: idk-I don’t know, ttyl-talk to you later, and wknd-for weekend. I also learned with experience that I began to cut letters out of words to make for faster texts. I also learned that using symbols in place of words when appropriate to save time was another text message strategy. I began to get the hang of text messages and have been doing so now for four years. It seems as each day passes by I learn a new text message trick that helps me with the constantly evolving text message era.