Did you see that TFLN?

What do we use our cell phones for? Well, these days we can use them for browsing the web, checking our e-mails, listening to music, etc. So let’s revert back three years. What did we use them for back then? Two main things: making phone calls and sending text messages. When these two tasks were the sole reasons for our cell phones, this communication was so personal. Except for maybe the untrusting significant other, the only person to read your text message is the person to which it was sent.

However, in this changing world, society seems to be turning less personal. People are so interested in how others are living. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace grant instant access into others lives. Twitter makes you feel like everybody wants to know what you are doing at all times. And there are certain websites that permit you into the direct personal communications between two people, namely Texts From Last Night. Who doesn’t love to read about the sexual or drunken escapades of complete strangers from the night before?

While browsing this infatuating website one night, I came across an very fitting text:

(856): Ran into him today. He apologized via facebook. sometimes I hate our generation

Clearly this person is experiencing, and loathing, the transition into a less personal world. I mean, he couldn’t even apologize face to face! He must be a real keeper.

It is interesting to note that many members of the older generation view us, the millennials, as being sucked into our own worlds, being plugged in all the time to our iPods, computers, and all our various technologies. However, these same technologies and advances today are enabling us to expose more of our lives for everybody to see, in turn making our generation much less personal and individual.

So next time you think you are having a private conversation via text messages, just keep in mind that your message could go public. Congratulations. You’ve just become the next mass communicator. Maybe people will come up to you and ask the newly common question, “Did you see that text from last night?”