Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK)

[flashl]

...


Children increasingly rely on personal technological devices like cellphones to define themselves and create social circles apart from their families, changing the way they communicate with their parents.

Innovation, of course, has always spurred broad societal changes. As telephones became ubiquitous in the last century, users — adults and teenagers alike — found a form of privacy and easy communication unknown to Alexander Graham Bell or his daughters.

...

Social psychologists like Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied the social impact of mobile communications, say these trends are likely to continue as cellphones morph into mini hand-held computers, social networking devices and pint-size movie screens.

“For kids it has become an identity-shaping and psyche-changing object,” Ms. Turkle said. “No one creates a new technology really understanding how it will be used or how it can change a society.”

...

“Cellphones demand parental involvement of a different kind,” she said. “Kids can do a lot of things in front of their parents without them knowing.”

NY Times

[Warpy]

1. I know my parents were utterly clueless

when I was on the phone to a friend when I was a kid. Kids will always develop a language all their own in order to break away from their parents.

Texting is just another variation of this.

[kirby]

2. McCain is still trying to figure out

why he keeps getting TXT messages with U R 2 Old.

[Teaser]

3. I got more and better h4X than these kidz.

They still can't beat my Kung Fu.

[Scooter24]

4. Cell phones and email are the only ways to

keep in touch with my parents these days. My father is glued to his blackberry throughout the day and I'm gradually getting to that point as my business continues to grow. The "it" device in my neighborhood is the new iPhone. Kids and teens everywhere have them, even grown "kids" like me :) It's amazing to think that by 2010, over 80% of people between age 5 and 24 will own a cell phone.