My 17 year old son sent over 4,000 text messages last month. Call me old skool, but I cannot even fathom communicating that much via texts (I have trouble sending one in under 20 minutes). After a lengthy “talking to” it dawned on me that he doesn’t really ever actually talk on the phone anymore (except to me). In fact I realized that I was scolding him for what has become second nature (of course I feel guilty over it), and it is the preferred method of communication and information sharing amongst his peers – and apparently many others.
Kevin Dugan’s recent post on his Strategic Public Relations blog on Text vs. E-mail or Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants describes a recent experience he had where he encouraged to provide his cell phone number rather than email address to receive coupons and updates from a local coffee shop. I can see why it is attractive – marketers would no longer have to deal with email deliverability issues and recipients can begin reducing the amount of SPAM in their inboxes. Not only that, I can have my coupons on my cell phone, so when I go to that coffee shop or bookstore I can get my discount (I am forever forgetting to print out my borders rewards coupons).
Texting is becoming so commonplace that we are now seeing it used in schools. In fact, educators are beginning to understand that ‘digital natives‘ actually process information differently – and the use of text messaging in education is quickly becoming a hot topic.
Some educators are going as far to say using SMS in the classroom to summarize complex topics helps to increase understanding – (as discussed in “Messaging Shakespeare” from the Northwest Educational Technology Consortium – NETC).
Cell phones offer new potential for learning, if well-managed. They can send short text messages (SMS), images, and browse the Web. Users can also send files from their phone to be published on a Web page. Imagine students gathering survey data outside class – now instead of purchasing new tools students’ cell phones may enable efficient data transfer and analysis. –NETC
This all sounds really crazy – and foreign to me. Thoughts?
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