sensory underload

In any big city, we have sensory overload. Thousands of sights to be seen, things to be heard, food to taste, things to feel, and smells to be smelled (although usually an unpleasant trash and pee combo). We have the gift of senses.. did we forget that?

A few weeks ago I heard on the news that NYPD vehicles have been outfitted with a device called the Rumbler. Ever since I heard this story I've been a little obsessed. This is a device that is used in tandem with the LOUD and forceful audible siren. The Rumbler emits vibrations that can be felt, so drivers with their stereos on and pedestrians with headphones on can be alerted to the approach of emergency vehicles. Are bright flashing RED and blue lights and ear splitting sirens not enough to catch our attention anymore? Soon we're going to have to be tasered.

iPods and car stereos aren't the only things to be blamed. Texting, Twittering, Facebooking while walking are all the things that are endangering us. We don't pay attention to what we're doing or where we're going. We've seen the headlines: "Texting Teen Falls Down Manhole," London introduced a "safe texting street" !!lined with padded lampposts!! Are we going to have to text-proof our world now? Ridiculous.

But, I too am guilty which is why I am writing this post. On Wednesday after work I had some time to kill before meeting a friend. I decided to walk around a little bit--look for my future husband... hey, you NEVER know!

Anyway.. I'm walking along and glance at my iPod to ensure Lady Gaga is on repeat when BAMMmM! One of my biggest fears takes place! Did I miss seductive eye contact with a handsome 6'4" stud? .no. .worse.

Carelessly in my Lady Gaga iPod dilemma, I failed to see

THIS

headed straight at me!

I had to JUMP over the cane to avoid tripping both of us! My lack of awareness and appreciation for my eye sight got me thinking about how much I take it for granted. It's sad to think about people who are living with the challenges of not having all working senses in comparison to those of us who would rather have iPods in our ears and BlackBerries in front of our faces.

I say, put the phone in the pocket, pull the headphones out of your ears and take a look and listen around. We're lucky we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell our world.



even if it does sometimes smell like pee.

txt u l8r ;-)

I cleared out my phone's history on Monday night. Today, two days later, the current state of my phone: 3 calls in my call log and 143 text messages! Text message wins! We live in the land of texting where our super-duper speedy thumbs formulate sentences and punctuation marks express emotions :-)

I remember my first experience with texting. It was 2001, I was a senior in high school and I had my first cell phone. I had the Nokia 3310 with a purple daisy printed face. My friend Angela and I tested out text messaging in speech class. This was the era when you could only successfully text someone if they had the same carrier as you. As Angela and I were both AT&T users, we quickly became text friends... until my mom got the phone bill and I was screwed. Whoops. I was doing household chores for weeks to make up for my texting rampages.

Somehow as phones have gotten smarter (cameras, full keyboards, touch screens, and internet) our language has only gotten dumber. For living in a world that is constantly searching for the better and faster, you'd think that we as people would also want to become both better and faster too. From what I have seen, we're only getting faster, NOT better and that is not necessarily a good thing. Texters alike are not taking time to s p e l l o u t simple words. The scary part is that the shorthand has become part of modern day spoken language too. I make a joke and then unashamedly follow up with a verbal "JK!" This is pretty ridiculous when I say such things around anyone over 35 years old. Talk about a generation gap that makes me look like a juvenile hooligan who doesn't know how to express full words.

But even now, I am faced with a minor generation gap. Sometimes upon receiving a text it takes me a minute to make sense of what the sender is trying to say. "OMG wuz GR8 2 C U 2nite." For some reason this only seems to be ok for tween girls to communicate this way. It seems like it takes longer to think of what numbers and misspellings to use rather than write it the right way. And that just defeats the purpose of this lingo altogether.

In fact because of my deep rooted text analysis, to me, it can make or break potential relationships. In searching through old chats, I found this conversation on the topic of boys and texting.

me: oh he texts me all the time

i'm starting to hate text messaging because that's all that boys have to do now

they never have to call

so impersonal

kerry: i know

sometimes when i'm texting i want to throw my phone away haha

The tough part about messaging is that it is addictive. It is easy. But it is not always appropriate in every situation. When I instant message with my boss at work, sometimes he will write LOL and I know he isn't laughing at all. So isn't that lying? I sit close enough to him that if he really were laughing out loud I would for sure hear him. Don't say you're laughing out loud if you're not.
But OMG, my call to text ratio is so unbalanced that when I actually see someone calling me it is a big deal! Gosh, the power of voice inflection really makes a difference that emoticons just can't compete with. I'm not going to lie though and I should admit that LOL, OMG and JK are very common inserts into my texts messages. I do still try and keep my texts in full words in an attempt to preserve the English language. I have been anti-shorthand for as long as I had been texting.

But don't stop texting me, friends! I am still a huge texting whore. All I have left to say is txt me l8r 2day plz, but it doesn't hurt to use f u l l w o r d s .