Thursday, February 18, 2010

I Grow Old, I Grow Old. I Shall Wear the Bottoms of my Trousers Rolled.

Researchers hope to make texting by voice a safe alternative: "A group of researchers at Clemson University's Human-Centered Computing Lab hopes to make texting by voice a 'less-distracted,' safer alternative.

Sending text messages is more popular than calling in the US, though there is no definitive answer why. 'The simple answer is we don't really know why,' Dr. Juan Gilbert, director of Clemson's Human-Centered Computing department, told Ars. 'What we do know is that users don't want to call, but want to text.'"

11 comments:

Richard Robinson said...

Why? Because it's "in", it's the thing to do, it's easy, they think other people will think they're cool to be doing it, there's no need to spell, speak clearly, understand grammar, language, or have anything of any importance or meaning whatever to say. Because there are apparently many millions of kids (my term for anyone from 6-20) who think it's great to send or receive a message such as "Hey wht u doin?" is the height of in-ness. Because you don't have to actually talk to someone. Kids will text each other for hours and then in person they have nothing to say.

Richard Robinson said...

Texting by voice is only one-way calling. Who cares?

mybillcrider said...

We're doomed, is what I think.

Anonymous said...

The last time I texted was, well I want to say 'never' but that isn't true. I've texted a couple of times, maybe 5 at the most.

I just read something that says pretty much everything you need to know about American society: Ashton Kutcher, in Moscow as some kind of entertainment emissary, will be "tweeting" about his dealings with the Russians.

Jeff the Geezer (who is not now nor ever will be on facebook)

And stay off my lawn!

mybillcrider said...

I've never texted, and I don't know if my phone even has the capability to send texts. I'm way out of the main stream of things.

Randy Johnson said...

I learned about this phenomenon when my sister's oldest grandson said his girl friend had broken up with him because he'd rather talk on the phone than text.

It sounds ridiculous. I guess I'm just not hip enough!

Randy Johnson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dale Denton said...

Hmmm...it's kind of the phone equivalent of FaceBook or other social sites, at least to the point that you leave messages for people to respond to at their leisure. Works well for those of us who don't want to interrupt someone at work with a personal call, but still wish to pass on info.

Also, you can pass on a sentence or two to someone without being drawn into a 15 minute conversation. From these standpoints, I find it quite useful, even though I'm decades past being a cool kid. However, I like the idea of voice texting as I talk a lot faster than I can type on my phone.

Dale Denton said...

Come to think of it, it is very similar to this blog, though done on a phone and usually much terser.

Richard Robinson said...

"terser"? Is that a word? Yes, I see it is. I always thought it would be "more terse". Along with communication habits, the language is devolving.

I agree with you, Bill. We're doomed. Whoever thought THIS was the way noir would take us...

Karin M said...

For one thing, some people have unlimited texting at all hours, while they pay for calls. The other thing is it's like leaving a message on an answering machine. The other person doesn't have to be there.

Not that I even have a cell phone.