Orange - SMS Messages

Now, I know everyone here likes to have things spelled out for them. SMS messages are small text files transmitted between mobile phones so that schoolkids can yabber on about Gareth sodding Gates in new and exciting ways. You can send and receive these messages on all new mobile phones and networks, including Orange. Which I do, for my shame.

First, what's good about text messages? Well, I suppose they are a convenient way of keeping ...
...and predictive texts do at least mean you don't find yourself squinting and swearing at an inch square screen for half an hour just to type 'I'm on the train'.

Texting people is also fairly cheap, if kept within sane boundaries. The most you're likely to pay is 12p for a message, depending on your phone network, contract, etc.

But there it ends. The fact is that text messaging represents a manifestation of Orwell's nightmare ... more

Now, I know everyone here likes to have things spelled out for them. SMS messages are small text files transmitted between mobile phones so that schoolkids can yabber on about Gareth sodding Gates in new and exciting ways. You can send and receive these messages on all new mobile phones and networks, including Orange. Which I do, for my shame.

First, what's good about text messages? Well, I suppose they are a convenient way of keeping in touch with people you don't want to speak to, and predictive texts do at least mean you don't find yourself squinting and swearing at an inch square screen for half an hour just to type 'I'm on the train'.

Texting people is also fairly cheap, if kept within sane boundaries. The most you're likely to pay is 12p for a message, depending on your phone network, contract, etc.

But there it ends. The fact is that text messaging represents a manifestation of Orwell's nightmare world of 1984. By allowing such a restrictive communicative media to gain such a foothold in our society, we are choosing to relinquish our capacity to be effective communicaters.

The limited size of a text message strips away all nuances of expression, unless they are compressed into moronic and often incomprehensible abbreviations. How r u m8?

We worry about declining levels of literacy, and everyone from teachers to TV and computer game producers are blamed. But just look around at the more rubbish opinions on this site. Half of them are written in 'mobile speak' already, and the extent to which the Internet resembles one huge text message has been increasing for two years now. It's now frightening. 'Hotornot's' Meet Me section is full of people who genuinely think that writing in SMS code will find them the partner of their dreams. S4D.

As we retreat behind these electronic forms of communication, genuine social interaction becomes stunted. Conversations punctuated by mobile phone checks are now the norm. How long before we are tutting each time someone fails to reply to a text message because they have to speak to someone in real life for a couple of seconds?

Words will disappear from our language, and with them will go our comprehension of those words. 'Making love' replaced by 'S3X!'. 'Melancholy' becomes 'sad'.

George Orwell predicted all this with Newspeak in 1984. Restrict a people's vocabulary, and you control them. If the word 'love' is taken away from us (four letters is far too many for the average text addict), will we be able to comprehend the emotion?

And, in ten years time, you will all see I was right, when the word 'opposition' is declared to be too long for the texting public, and quietly replaced with the word 'enemy'.

The future's Orange. Yes, the future's H311. 

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