When I was buying my first cellphone here, “unlimited text massages” became one of the most important reasons for me to choose Virgin Mobile. I had a record of sending more than 1,500 text messages one month when I was in college. Like it or not, text massage has already been part of our lives and changed the way we communicate with others. There are several characteristics of text massages.
1. Interactive
Most of time, we use text messages to chat. The roles of sender and receiver are changing all the time. It can facilitate people’s interaction with each other.
2. Easy to access.
Since the first text message was sent in 1992, the text massage service is growing at an amazing speed. The total amount of text messages sent in China in the year 2006 was 4,300 BILLION, and the number is still growing. More and more people can afford to buy a cellphone and every cellphone can send text massages which are cheap and fast. The characteristics of grass-rooted and easy-access make text message widely accepted as a new way to communicate.
3. Private and indirect.
Different from face-to-face communication, text messages are more indirect and can keep more privacy. People are not necessary to know who the sender is and other people will never know the content of the text message unless the receiver wants to let people know. Also, if someone does not want to say something directly, he or she can use text message to express his or her feelings.
4. Butterfly effect
It is very easy to deliver messages by text message. A gets a message from someone, and forwards the message to B, B forwards to C, then C mass texts it to D, E, F, G… Two days later, A gets the same she sends to B from Z.
Two years ago, there was a boycott to Carrefour in China, I got a text message from a friend about it, and I forwarded it to another friend. To my surprise, he told me that he had already sent this message to more than 20 people. Text message helps to deliver and share information in any network and enlarge networks at the same time.
Due to those characteristics, text messages are making communication more and more convenient; however, it brings problems at the same time.
The reading material mentions the case of SARS in 2003 in China. Text messages helped to inform people about the real situation of the disease. However, at the same time, some people were using text messages to broadcast negative and unreal information which caused panic among people and disorders even chaos in the market. Also, some people are illegally selling clients’ personal information which causes people receiving lots of spam messages every day. Personally, I think there should be regulations on text messages from government just like regulations on any other markets; however, those regulations should never harm people’s freedom of speech. It is no doubt another problem brought up by the development of communication technology to the government.
I think your point about how text messages can be used to convey important information, as well as disseminate false ideas relates back to O’Neill’s article on media literacy. Just like email and any other online media that facilitates the dissemination of information, text messages need to be received with a critical lens as well. People must be educated on how to be their own fact-checker, no matter how trusted the source of information is. I’m not sure if government regulation on text messaging can solve the problem of the spread of inaccurate information without disrupting freedom of expression, but am curious to know what your thoughts are more specifically on this idea.
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