When I was in high school I took a typing class. In the late 80s the electric typewriter was holding on for dear life as a form of word-processing technology, and I learned to type on one of those old, loud machines. As a skills course, typing was extremely practical, but it was also hopelessly boring. As the teacher called out letters, we hit keys. For 50 minutes she called out letters, and like trained monkeys, we hit keys. For the entire first week, we could only type the letter “F.” It was a long week.
On test days, we had timed typing exercises to see how many words we could churn out per minute without making mistakes. It was sheer mental and physical torture. When the teacher said “Fingers ready,” the panic and sweating began. And then the sound of keystrokes and carriage returns filled the room, as students typed like the wind. But as intense as all this pressure was, no one would have dreamed of filming us and putting it on national television. Only C-SPAN could be worse than watching teens type.
Oh, how times have changed. One of my students recently told me about the LG National Texting Championship held in New York City on April 21, 2007 (I’m a little behind here — more evidence that I need a grad assistant). Teens competed in contests of speed and accuracy for the grand prize of $25,000, and the whole thing was broadcast on ESPN. For several hours, sports fans could watch a room full of teens crouched over their cell-phones, ignoring the rest of the world as they texted for dear life.
Naturally, most parents might ask how this is any different from watching their own teenagers on the sofa texting for 18 hours per day. The same languid pose, the same rapid-thumb movement, the same defiant refusal to acknowledge that anyone else is in the room. In fact, the only difference between the National Texting Championships and the average American household is that instead of winning $25,000 at the end of the day, Dad will be paying the same amount to Verizon at the end of the month.
How does one get in shape for this event? Finger lunges? Index curls? Knuckle pops? Is there such a thing as a “Thumb-Master?” Is there a certain way to grip the phone? Or maybe it’s all mental preparation; memorizing shorthand, trying to go through an entire day without any vowels, filtering out all distractions (such as people trying to talk to you and whatnot). Whatever the strategy, this has to be the only sport in the world where contestants train 24/7.
As usual, television has followed its standard formula of finding a pop culture craze that annoys parents every day and putting it on TV. We’ve seen this pattern before. Does your teen sing so loudly in the bathroom that the family pets run and hide? Let’s film her for American Idol. Does your son go out with a different girl every week? He may be the next Bachelor. Do your kids whine constantly about their chores? They are already living The Simple Life. But TV may have reached a new low. Instead of running reruns of Sports Center, ESPN must be desperate to fill airtime with fodder like the Texting Championship.
After the 2007 contest, the new champion was a 13-year-old from the East Coast, whose proud mother boasted about her daughter to CNN: “She gets eight to 10 thousand text messages per month, so I thought if anyone can win this, she can.” And so yet another parent gleefully cashes in on her daughter’s bad habits. Augustus Gloop’s mom felt the same way. While some called her son a lazy, gluttonous goof, she believed that someday society would find a way to reward his special talents. I think this enabling East Coast mom needs an Oompa Loompa song (1971 version):
“Oompa, Loompa, doopedy do
I’ve got a perfect PZL 4 U:
Oompa Loompa, doopedy de
Close up your phone and LSTN 2 me.
What do you get when you kid is a twit?
Cooped up all day in a messaging fit?
Texting is really a drain and a bore,
And it can make their thumbs . . .
so . . . sore.
(Plus it gives them callouses)
Oompa Loompa, doopedy da,
Their conversation skills are so blah,
Oompa loompa, doopedy dee
Your kids could use some TXT therapy.
Dr. Claxton is on sabbatical this semester. This column originally ran on February 22, 2008.
