Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Textitude, Why Moms Get Pissed Off

I've got two teenagers. Their favorite form of communication is text messaging. Nicole does about 5,000 texts a month. Aaron is a bit less. Aaron is a bit older and has learned that talking to someone can get a quicker response. Nicole loves to be able to "talk" with 6 people at once. Nicole turns her phone off during the school day (ok, this is the rule at middle school, but she seems to be texting me during these hours somehow). I don't text much and I don't have my phone permanently attached to my hand so I miss alot of their communications if I haven't checked my purse recently.

I was talking with Nikki and some of her friends the other day and they were complaining that their moms were all over them about their attitude. That their mom was reading to much into their text responses and getting all "up there" or some such term that I have no idea what it means. Thank god for the Urban Dictionary.

I ask these girls, who text each other nonstop, even when they are sitting next to each other, what they text that piss their moms off. It's too much slang or texting shorthand, you know those acronyms that you can never figure out. Like OMDB, which I figure means Open Many Dogs Butts, but Nikki says means, Over My Dead Body. I said, "maybe because we can't translate WTF you are trying to say. " I explained that there could be multiple definitions for each shortcut. And then there is the emoticons! ;p Trying to figure that out makes us drool or leaves us shocked :-0

But the biggest problem all the mothers had was the one word response:

WHATEVER

That one word has so much attitude. It seeps of attitude. Just because we can't see you roll your eyes when you text this, doesn't mean we are stupid.

5 comments:

  1. Guilty. I hate talking on the phone, it's borderline phobia. So I text, and yes, even my mother. But I spell all the words out rightly-like when I text anyone over the age of 35. It's just common courtesy.

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  2. Part of my marriage is based on texting...he texts me when he's coming home, if he let the cat out, could I buy whatever if I'm going out, etc...or just simply to say he loves me! Or vice/versa...it's kinda the "norm" here-kids and adults alike. My hubby even gets texted-they call it SMS here, stands for Short Message Service or Shit or something-by his friends when there's a score at a soccer match they're watching on TV! I too use the "long version" of writing, ie normal. But my favorite short is BTW-but then what, right?! hee hee

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  3. I hate texting, it's the stupidest thing ever!!!

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  4. I think Amy and Chris both text me so they can get right to the point and not jabber on forever with me.

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  5. Texting gets on my nerves! Did you see the news story about the girl who texted over 14,000 times in one month? Ugh! I have a 13 year old boy who only takes his cell phone with him when we go to WalMart. The reason he does this is so I can call him from mine when it is time for us to leave and I don't want to walk the store to find him. LOL!

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