The Sms Generation

I am proud to belong to the sms generation. My grandpa always laughs at me. He says my generation spends more time ‘smsing’ each other than actually talking. Grandpa does not know how to sms. He feels that texting is a waste of time that could be used more constructively. Grandpa doesn’t know that ‘smsing’ is almost like learning a new language where most vowels are skipped, numbers denote words and abbreviations take on a whole new meaning.

Lol means laughing out loud, js means just saying, gb means goodbye, and punctuation marks can actually emote like when you want to stick your tongue out at someone you type: P where the colon denotes theeyes and the capital P the tongue. ‘Smsing’ is a language that emotes.

All my friends have cellphones and we keep texting each other to come to the playground or the library. Sometimes, I text mom to tell her that I have extra classes. For those texting, it is a lot of fun because it is a noiseless conversation between you and the person you are texting but for those watching it seems like a futile exercise in thumb ballet.

I keep telling grandpa that he must learn to sms. What if he had an emergency and for some reason he couldn’t talk, at least he could text somebody for help.