Inhabited Chair: Texting – what does it mean for America and for you?
Ok, so the title is a bit extreme, and is more referring to American Idol than America in general, but it still applies. There seems to be a flurry of activity surrounding texting in my life so naturally it is the topic I chose to write about this week. Firstly, and what I think is also least important, is the semi-controversy over the results of this year’s American Idol finale. The issue revolves around a promotion AT&T ran for the finale. As the sole network that could be used to cast votes via text for the popular singing contest, AT&T is alleged to have offered free texting at two watching parties in Arkansas, the home state of the eventual Idol winner, Kris Allen. Supporters of Adam Lambert claim that there were no similar efforts in his home state, California. The claim that an astounding 38 million votes came from Arkansas has not been verified by any reliable source. Besides, the population of Arkansas is only 2.8 million according to Google, so if you do the math, that figure is far too inflated to be explained by free texting at two parties. The number is most likely made up. In a statement made by a spokesman for AT&T, AT&T said they were invited to those parties and some local employees brought sample phones and demonstrated how to power text, sending 10 or more texts with the press of a button. Even so it is unlikely that this would result in such an astronomical number of votes. I believe the results are legitimate so congratulations to Kris Allen.
On a far more personal note, we just added texting to our family plan. I have had a texting plan for several years now on my own that I used for communication exclusively with my peers. Now it is taking some getting used to to receive text messages from my mom. My dad and brother still refuse to participate in texting. It has helped me and my mom to stay in touch as I am in Boston and she is in Allentown, PA so texting definitely has a big upside. Now for the dark side of texting:
Texting has created an etiquette problem where people are often ignoring people they’re with at the dinner table in order to text. The problem is that people do not even realize how rude this is. While there is no way many of these people would talk on the phone because it’s rude, they are texting with a very similar effect. Kids have become so used to being always in contact, it can have a profound effect on a child when a parent is looking at their phone instead of waiting expectantly for the child. When you are texting you cannot pay attention to what is going on around, and act accordingly.
Shoe Thoughts of the Week: This week I will highlight products on our website that are associated with the cell phone.
The Clava 2400 IPOD/Cell Phone Holder can add an extra layer of protection for touch screen phones and sliding phones so that if a phone is accidentally dropped it does not break. It will fit larger phones. This is a really cool bag that is very adjustable due to the unique zipper design. It is perfect for carrying your phone or mp3 player in style. There’s not much to the Baggallini PDC286 Phone/PDA Case but it s smartly designed to be able to fit all your essentials in the bag. It comes in a wide variety of colors so finding something you like will be no problem at all.
Non-Shoe Thoughts of the Week:
- Relating to my main story, I am very happy with my LG Shine. It is a really cool looking phone, which is functional as well. I use it as my music player and it functions well in that regard.
- Pandora is one of the coolest technologies around. It shows that music is not much more than math that can be grouped and chosen by formulas. You just tell it what you like, and it gives you good music back. And it’s free!
And now I would like to say a few words about myself and my posts. My name is Zachary Wolfson, I’m a student at Northeastern doing my internship at Shoebuy.com. I will be writing weekly blog entries, which I modeled after “Monday Morning Quarterback” by Peter King who is a great sports writer and always gives some love to my Philadelphia Eagles. Every week, there will be a main story where I discuss something that is happening in the world at that time, my shoe thoughts of the week, where I share my thoughts on a couple of styles and my non-shoe thoughts of the week where I just share random thoughts for your enjoyment.
Thanks for reading. I always enjoy hearing from my readers so leave lots of comments on anything I’ve said. Please subscribe to the Shoebuyblog.com RSS feed and tell all your friends.
