Kids These Days

At the risk of sounding even more like a crusty old coot than I already do, this item on CNN today just absolutely blew my mind. I'm thinking this has got to be some sort of record for pointlessness, and/or a sad commentary on society.

Let's do the math for a second, shall we? Eight thousand messages a month means a bit over 250 per day. If we assume our proud little pum'kin gets a good eight hours of sleep a night, like any healthy growing child should, that leaves her a solid sixteen hours each day to send SMSes to her heart's content.

Which means that on average, she would have to be sending an SMS roughly every four minutes. For sixteen hours a day. Straight. Every day. Including weekends. Even assuming that the majority of them are single-word replies like the aforementioned "OMG," this hardly leaves her time to eat or go to the bathroom (unless of course she can do each with one hand... but that's just gross.)

A few observations are in order:

1. I sure hope she is diligent about recharging her phone at night. At the rate she claims to be going, if she forgets to plug it in even once, she's toast.
2. At some point, she will either develop severe neurological damage in her hands, or else rippling, muscled thumbs the size of Lance Armstrong's quads.
3. What happens when, at some point in her adult life, she has to have an actual conversation with an actual human being? What's she going to do then?
   

I went to college at a place that had (and still has) a reputation for attracting students who are very smart, but also profoundly socially inept. While I always tried to avoid falling into that trap, to an extent I'd have to admit that the stereotype was justified. And of course, times change—but there are books to help one deal with that sort of thing.

But if this is what the next generation is going to be like... heck, alumni of my alma mater are going to look like positively Gatsbyesque by comparison. Of course, we'll also all be jealous because we never earned 25 Large quite so easily, but whatever. At least some of us will be able to have a conversation face-to-face without having the urge to whip out a phone to communicate.

OK, rant over. I have to go find my cane and put my teeth in a glass on the sink now.