'High’ on texting

During a business trip to Thailand last week, I happened to chat with a young Filipina on her way to Bangkok to visit her mother. Upon learning that I was in the wireless technology business and worked with our partners Globe and Smart, she immediately narrated such a revealing tale. Bea is a 21-year-old college graduate who has been jobless since her graduation last year and like the millions of Filipino youths, she used her cellphone actively to text friends and download content.

Interestingly enough since she has been out of school for almost a year, her boredom and yearning to stay in touch with her school friends has actually multiplied her text usage to abundant proportions. The harsh realization that her passion for texting has become both a desperate and uncontrollable passion finally dawned on her when she received her last monthly statement showing arrears in the amount of P17,000. Apparently, she hawked most of her personal belongings to pay for past bills but this last one was just the nail on her coffin. Currently, her post-paid line remains disabled after she failed to settle her last bill. She confessed of now feeling shaken by this loss of "texting" capability and depressed from the isolation that it has brought about. Coincidentally, an almost similar case was related to me by my upset sister-in-law just over the weekend. Her daughter’s latest bill showed that she consumed almost 5,000 text messages for the month. Seeking my advice on how to file charges against her telecom provider for the blatant mistake, I calmed her down first before explaining that there was probably no mistake in that billing statement and that sort of text usage was the norm for some teenagers. There was a minute of eerie silence and she murmured shortly after, "How can she text that much, she is in school all day and goes to sleep at 8:30 p.m. daily?" I just advised her to switch her daughter to a prepaid SIM and provide her a monthly allowance for her load. Sounds familiar, huh?

Do we have the beginning of a new type of addiction that is going unchecked? I made a call to my psychiatrist friend to get his point of view and he commented that similar to drugs, gambling and alcohol, texting excessively could be classified as an addiction because of the interferences it inflicts on a user’s social life. Eventually, he sees that some friction will ensue between the texter and his family or friends who will notice the unhealthy passion even before the texter does. Well, isn’t this always the case with any addiction? The first people to notice the addiction are usually the older folk who grew up in a different generation and have looked at it with revulsion because of the behavior this new medium has brought about. I myself have found it ridiculous seeing teenage couples on dinner dates tapping on their keypads rather than looking into each other’s eyes and enjoying meaningful conversation. I just recently established an "off-cellphone" rule with my wife when having dinners out together to avoid being disturbed by the all-too-familiar interruption of a message alert tone.

I see the point of view of my psychiatrist friend, but to be a bit liberal and considerate of today’s youth culture before making any conclusions, let me try to make a comparison. Who is to really say what excessive volume of texting really is? If the culture of today’s youth dictates as norm that a reply has to be sent within the minute, then isn’t a teenager just conforming? The same way I used to conform in the early 80s to meeting the parents of my date prior to taking her out or risk being blacklisted from every mother’s eligible date list. What I’m saying is that every generation has a set of etiquette that is developed because of that unique point in time. The very same way today that a new medium such as the Internet or texting has developed a set of unsaid guidelines which its users abide by to maintain some semblance of order.

So let’s not be too hasty to pass judgment on today’s phenomenon of texting and its very passionate users. Still because of its lack of priority in the medical disorder category, I believe that some attempt should be made by the government or private groups to deeply analyze this behavior to prepare for abuses that are surely rising. I mean anyone will unanimously agree that a 1,000-text-messages-a-day appetite is a ground for confinement at the Makati Medical basement.

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Patrick R. Garcia is managing director of Bidshot Wireless Services. For comments or suggestions, text your message to 233011 (Globe) or 2430018 (Smart), or e-mail [email protected].