The majority of the readers of this blog were born or were young children in 1992. As a result, you have grow up in a world with mobile phones and SMS. On this day in 1992, the first text message was sent by an engineer working for Vodafone (click here to read more). Some 8,000,000,000,000 texts are sent every year.
Has texting benefited society? Some have expressed fears that texting damages children's language and literacy development. However, some recent studies have found the opposite! Has it made us more productive? Constant bleeps or vibrations break our concentration, possibly making us less productive. Niall Ferguson has recently argued that texting is making kids stupid. He has
suggested that parents remove mobile devices from their kids and send them to
book camp, where they spend two weeks reading and
discussing classic literature. Texting may also result in underdeveloped social skills - we text rather than talk. I am also concerned about the long-term damage to thumbs!
Like any piece of technology, SMS can liberate as well as enslave us. We need to be in control of the technology rather than it being in control of us.
