Texting is something we’ve all gotten used to. From trying to justify yourself for being late to work, to just gossiping with your friends, texting is an action performed so monotonously across a vast age group. However, in this rather unblemished activity, one can come a across quite a few maddening situations.
To begin with, we’ve all come across that one lazy texter who doesn’t want to put effort into their texts whatsoever. It is truly infuriating when you’ve put so much effort in typing out an essay of a text and they just reply with a ‘k’. You know there have been several instances when I have waited for quite some time, on my phone, delusionally thinking that the ‘k’ will be succeeded by a proper text. But of course, I’ll just be left waiting.
Then there is that particular individual, quite similar to the first, who only texts in short forms. See I’m all in for abbreviations. They’re a very convenient method of communication. But I don’t know if it’s just me, I just can’t come to terms with all the different short forms in texting. See its fine if you’re the person who is texting, but the person receiving it is going to have to go through the desolate task of interpreting each and every single short form they come across which completely contradicts the purpose of texting, which is to make communication faster and easier.
The next one we are all guilty of doing, leaving someone on read. You might be too tired to answer their texts or you simply just don’t have the appropriate response to their text. However, I’ve come across certain people (for example: myself), who leave people on read just to revel in their exasperation. It is fun when you’re the one leaving people on read, but not quite you’re the one being left on read.
And of course, how could we forget, the master of irritation when it comes to texting, autocorrect. Though it is meant to be helping you when texting, it isn’t really the best at its job. Sometimes the corrections completely change the meaning. For example, in Apple autocorrect, ‘NP’, which is short for ‘no problem’ isn’t recognized by default and is corrected to ‘NO’, thus completely changing the meaning. I have fallen victim to this so many times and I can assure you, it isn’t pretty.
Irritating or not, texting has become an integral part of or lives. I feel that in the future, texting will takeover as the normal form of communication and verbal interaction will diminish. So, let’s make sure that we’re intimate with this activity, otherwise, fall into the cruel clasps of texting. :)
 | Aibel Praveen, 9-G, FAIPS-DPS |