Saturday May 16th

Greetings,
Day three of summer vacation and my life is more uneventful than ever. With no job and general lack of motivation, this summer could prove to be long and tedious. However, I've heard that since the economy is on such an upswing, finding a summer job that will employ an unqualified and unexperienced college student should be a breeze. So I am optimistic. But until that time, I am forced to find ways to entertain myself on a day to day basis. And as interesting as daytime television is I am going to have to look elsewhere. But there is one source of entertainment that never ceases to keep me enthralled. And that brings us to our Daily Topic: TEXTING



Now while I enjoy an occasional text message, I feel that this phenomenon has grown slightly out of control. Text messaging can be a quick and useful medium of communication between friends. It serves as a replacement for making a phone call in situations where it is inconvenient to interrupt one's activities, say a conversation, meeting, movie or International Relations 210 Lecture. However, as younger and younger children get hold of cell phones, texting has spiraled out of control and, in my opinion, is leading to the downfall of inter-human communication and people skills. So why do I think that this has become a problematic issue? While watching television the other day, I saw an advertisement for the following event:


Yes, a texting championship. Contestants compete to be the world's fastest texter. Last year, winner Nathan Schwartz texted "Does everybody here know the alphabet? Let’s text. Here it goes … AbcDeFghiJKlmNoPQrStuvWXy & Z! Now I know my A-B-C’s, next time won’t you text with me?" in 60 seconds to become the texting champion and win $50,000. Not only is this incredibly pathetic, but it is further advocating the use of texting. Texting has become an addiction for many middle and high schoolers. In Wisconsin, a 14 year old girl was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she refused to comply with a teacher's demands that she stop texting in class. Additional recent trends in texting have proven equally as disturbing. One 13 year old girl racked up 14,500 texts in one month. Now let's do some math shall we? 14,500 divided by 30 is 483 texts a day. If we give this girl 7 hours to sleep, and divide that 483 by 17 other hours, we get 28 texts per hour or basically, one text per every two minutes that she was awake. Here is my concern: When does this generation reach a point at where it struggles with actual human interaction? When applying for jobs, campaigning for positions, or just meeting new people, will they know how to react without a phone in their hand to prescreen their physical reactions? While giving your 10 year old a phone might be convenient, I think that there should be a minimum age of 14 for owning a cell phone. The future of our country might depend on it.
Text any comments to 978-886-8140
-ROF

Daily Food: Papa Gino's

Daily Activity: Pool Cleaning

Daily Song: Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Daily Attire: Khakis

Daily News Everyone Should Care About: Falling Gas Prices Deny Russia A Level of Power

Daily News No One Should Care About: Man Tries to Smuggle 14 Birds in Pants

Daily Life Goal: Smuggle 25 Song Birds into California in My Pants

Daily Complaint: Cell Phone Service

Daily Drink: Lemonade

Daily Studies: None

Daily Movie: The Last Samurai