This Online Opinion Piece (OpEd) will reflect all the research done of texting with my personal opinion about the issue and how I will advocate for a change.
Texting and its changes - by Jesus Gonzalez
According to Jeffrey Kugler (2012) in an article published on CNN, the number of text messages sent monthly in the U.S. exploded from 14 billion in 2000 to 188 billion in 2010 (para.3). Texting has become an important issue as seen by the tremendous change in number of text messages.
However, this issue has both a positive side and a negative one. We can see these different views in our education and our social life.
In education, the issue of texting has created several different opinions saying that it’s harming student’s capacity of paying attention and others that state it facilitates communication. It’s easy to get distracted by technology during classes and it would be reflected in the students grades. Every time you answer a text you miss important information your professor is giving. It would certainly affect you by not learning the same things if you were fully concentrated.
But there is the positive side of texting which facilitates communication with our professors and classmates making us able ask questions in a very rapid and simple way. Texting can be really useful in education learning how to implement it in classrooms and in activities.
In our social life the only positive consequence texting has brought is the speed and facility to communicate with people in a concise way, but these good consequences are being overcome by tremendous bad issue such as texting and driving. Texting has led to distractions driving, making texting and driving the worst effect of all. According to the Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2011, 3,331 people were killed in a crash because a distraction compared to3.267 in 2010 (para.1). We can see that texting and driving has and strong impact even in peoples life making governments to implement policies about the use of texting while driving.
We need to create in today’s society a change in the way we think of texting and the way we use it through every day. Try to make people use technological devices only when the situation requires it.
Doctor Michael Morgan form the University of Massachusetts said in a video “Every technological development that comes along has a tremendous impact on previously existing technologies”. But now it’s having not only an impact in the previously existing technologies it’s having an impact in people’s relationships and lives.
By knowing the issue, seeing the numbers of deaths, and the decrease in people’s face to face communication we can see that texting needs to be controlled.
Technology since early years is used for the good of persons in fields like medicine, transportation, and communication for saying some of them. But now technology is not used to make things easier is used for not making things at all. It is not used for the good of persons it is used now to avoid real communication creating a dependency so big that now is in education and even being subject of state laws.
We need to make a change in the way we use texting. So I will say that in schools for example we need to implement rules that don’t allow students to use texting at all in their classrooms because it leads according to Dr. Froese (2010) to the 27% loss of information (para.1).
In a society way of viewing texting I will advocate banning in all states the use of texting while driving since they are still some states like Texas that allow it. Even national laws and policies should be implemented. Finally in the communication with family and friends we need to learn how to use technology since texting is ruining now face to face communication which is the perfect way of communication.