“We Don’t Text”
by Daniel Taylor
Every once in a while, friends will get married and will enter some form of technology blackout. The most common one that I see is for a couple to get married and drop their e-mail individuality. The order of the decline is as follows: (1) engagement; (2) purchase large, high maintenance dog; (3) wedding; (4) house purchase; and (5)  announce new, single e-mail account for couple/new family. It’s usually one of those carrier or cable MSO accounts, and you have no idea to whom you’re sending the e-mail.
Call it a pet peeve, but multiple e-mail accounts (usually 5)Â come with the basic residential Internet services, and it’s simply a matter of logging in and setting up another account. I’ve offered to help, but there’s usually some other reason for the single e-mail address, and it’s not technology that’s the limitation.
Another example where technology is not the limitation is text messaging. Mobile telephones can send and receive text messages, and it’s extremely cost effective as long as you keep the number of messages in the single- and double-digits.
A few days ago, I got a call from a family friend who was preparing to head on an overseas trip. He wanted to make certain that he knew how to make telephone calls from his mobile telephone while in a couple of GSM countries. We spoke about the “+” button on the phone and how it worked.
Then I suggested that he consider sending text messages instead of making telephone calls. At $2.50 a minute for voice calls, a text message (25¢ each) is a viable alternative. Especially when meeting up with friends, finalizing arrival information, and so forth.
But I wasn’t prepared for the response:
“We don’t text,” he said.
I didn’t have a response to that statement. It’s one thing to make a stubborn, blanket statement. It’s another thing to make that a family-wide admonition of a technology.
As a matter of course, I don’t like making such blanket statements, because few things are that black-and-white. For example, we don’t especially care for the “actor” Will Farrell, and we don’t go out of our way to see his films. But suppose that I’m watching cable television and Old School comes on. All other things being equal, I’ll probably watch it.
So I can’t categorically say that I will or will not use a particular technology, especially one that already exists on my mobile. Will I pay to send an MMS? Probably not. But I could envision a situation where I might want to send a photo to someone else. Would I pay at that time? Probably.
Later in the conversation, as we talked about the upcoming trip, I heard one more thing: “we don’t eat olives.” This time I had a response, “Have a good time in Italy!”
