If texting predated the phone people would abandon their handheld devices the moment a chubby Bakelite rotary dialer was in reach. “Have you tried phoning?  It’s like texting only you actually speak to the person! It’s amazing, you get all this nuance.  Turns out Ed was being sarcastic!”

Texting is primarily a way of avoiding, not making, contact. Text recipients glance at their expensive phones (originally designed to be used as phones) mostly to see to whom it is they are not replying.  The content of the message is secondary to knowing that someone you don’t wish to acknowledge acknowledges you.  It’s Cartesian one-upmanship.

The same people who ignore messages are outraged when their own go unanswered. “I’ve been texting and texting him! What can he possibly be doing?”

Most texts are so peremptory and garbled, the equivalent of grunts and snorts, as to require clarification in the form of a more carefully thumb-typed follow-up text

I’ve yet to meet anyone who needs “unlimited texting” because they have a lot to say.

If you have to resort to emojis to make the meaning of your words clear you should probably read more and get the hang of English. Emojis are cave drawings that someone else had to create for you because you aren’t so good with a pointy stick.  And they had more class at Lascaux than to give a bad review of the hunt by sketching a steaming pile of ibex poop.

Email has fallen out of favour because it’s on the record and demands finished thoughts and complete sentences. When people try to read an email of any length and substance on their phone they invariably only scan it and get upset about something they misread.  Then they’ll text you back.

In a bizarre turn Skype afforded us a live picture of the person with whom we are speaking after texting rudeness was already widespread in the population.  People with ADHD attention spans are perfectly willing to stream you their waning interest.  They will fiddle with stuff on their desk, look at and react to other windows open on the screen and, as though you were not looking straight into that room AT THEM, start signalling and mouthing messages to people off camera.

Just because privacy is outmoded doesn’t mean you have license to share everything.

Business has learned to capitalize on the decline in meaningful communication by developing algorithms which make buying easier and return nearly impossible.  Call volumes are always higher than normal so you will always wait long enough that most suckers will simply give up.  You can buy a plane ticket in an instant but it takes you an afternoon to change it.

It’s difficult to get much done via a website if you are required to change passwords and PINs more frequently than you use it.  The system at MUN is comically cumbersome and clunky in this respect, it’s like someone from the Computer Science Department built it.

Going somewhere to meet in person lets you use and read body language, you feel humanity. It gets you out of your bubble and blows a little stink off.  Use your smartphone for what it does best, selfies and Pokémon GO, the most effective way to communicate is face to face. JS.