Text Messaging... An American passtime?

How many of you text message? Right, all of you. All of us, as I am in no way excluded from the phenomena. I feel a slave to my cell phone every time i hear it call out to me "text message!" (a sound i recorded with my own voice and set as my alert). I stop what I'm doing and anwser it's command.

One morning a few days ago, it seemed that everyone was texting me at one time... My mom, my Dad, friends...etc. Everytime I would go to do something, "text message!" and off I went to answer to my phone. So then, do I own it? Or does it own me? When you are standing in line at the grocery store...the resurant...waiting for the bus...how many people are text messaging? How many people are completely unaware of their surroundings?

On television, extras in the background are texting away. Texting is incorporated into comercials...television shows, and movies. Anybody see Seven Pounds? Text messaging played a KEY role in the film.

It is not only the American culture which has been taken captive by this text messaging frenzy. When I traveled to Japan in 2007 I saw many people sitting on the subway, texting. I would look over unsuspecting shoulder to see the japanise characters glide onto their LCD screens. The language was so foreign to me it was more like artwork than anything.

I used to find myself walking around Temple's campus, crossing the street, texting. Total disreguard for looking to the left, right, and left again. Instead, I looked down, to recieve or send another text. I have been engaged in conversations, pulled at my phone and preformed my duty to it, then continued with the conversation I was having face to face with another human.
What robotic behaivor! Yet, the person I'm speaking with does not take offense, for just moments ago they did the same thing.

So, text messaging is a part of our subculture. When VH1 chronicles the years of my youth and 20s, text messaging will have it's own segment. Along with Myspace, Facebook...and twitter (what is a twitter?!?!). I can only imagine what is next.