text messaging - the sport ESPN won't cover

It's official now. The world is going to hell in a hand basket.

Why? When there are competitions, equating a form of athleticism to sending a text message well then the future is just all over. Seriously, there was a competition for the fastest, and most accurate, text messager.

Obviously this was a ploy by LG Electronics Inc. to spur the use of text messages and generate income. The winner of the "event" was Kate Moore. At 15 years of age she gained her "skills" by sending 400 or more text messages a day. Which includes in school when she should be learning lessons, and at home when she is supposed to be having dinner.

Now I must add that the young Ms. Moore states that she has good grades. Which I will take at her word. Though I bet that her grades were higher, and could be higher, without the texts. And she is involved with performing in her local school plays. Which leads me to believe she will not become a serial killer as she has real world social skills, to some degree.

But more importantly is the thought that for the predominance of young people, interactions and just life have become more of a secondary action to being tied to a cell phone or similar device. 250,000 people, all at or under the age of 22, showed up for this "competition". And I don't get why.

So she can text well and fast. Why does that deserve a trophy or $50,000 (how much of which I wonder will be spent on her cell phone bills)? How is this useful or even interesting?

Consider any sport. There is a skill and athleticism involved. There are social attributes that are gained. Some degree and form of socially redeeming qualities can be found. But text messages? If this is the best we can expect from the generations to come, plan on moving to an island.

I can see it now. Movie stars that win Oscars for the best emotes in a sentence. New debates about English being the only language vs. the hyper-abbreviated language of texts being spoken. OMG

I honestly am not picking on this young girl. But I am picking on a non-achievement that has been raised to a point that it pretends to be worthy of acclaim. I am picking on the lowering of standards and expectations of the next generations. She won $50,000 big deal. What she and other young people may be losing in the long run is priceless.

10,000 text messages during school

There is some news you just have to stop and read. You just have to wonder what the hell someone was thinking. Or in this case, what was not being thought about.

It seems that a teenaged girl in Wyoming spent 8 hours a day, most of this time in school, sending 300 text messages for a month (10,000 in total). The result was a nearly $5,000 bill for her parents and failing grades in her classes. Her dad, understandably upset, smashed her cell phone after reading the bill.

So beyond the cost of this misadventure I have a big question. Why do kids need cellphones, especially while they are in school?

In the rush of technology to keep every user constantly in contact with every other user in creation, the question of need and use have flown out the window. That seems to be the root of the problem, along with a lack of self-discipline that appears to be the hallmark of the youth of today.

Kids have gone to school literally for over a century without access to any communication beyond their lungs. It has worked fine for generations. But now we have cellphones and the internet. And kids are getting dumber for all the improvements at their disposal. Seriously, the average kid today has less common sense and knowledge than ever before.

Text messages are a great example of one of the distractions facing kids. Add to that internet access, and the ability to play games on phones or to carry portable game systems and you have the growth of ADHD. If you couple these technological advances with music videos, internet film clips, television shows that are based in absolute stupidity (like Jackass), and movies that believe in flash and fast cuts over substance you can understand why kids have no concept of consequences of actions.

But back to my point, a cell phone in school. What is it’s purpose? What is so important for a child to say to anyone that it must be done when they are supposed to be learning?

Smashing this one phone is a symbol that I think everyone should have. Because there really is no reason to have it in the first place.

Oh, since the phone has been gone the grades of this teenage girl have gone back up to B’s, where they were before she had the cell phone.