you, my friend, are hella awkward.

let me set a few things straight. yes, i'm a GenYer. yes, we are wicked awesome and good for business. but we are also hella awkward. and, my friend, most likely you are too.

GenYers spend most of our days on the internet. but let's not kid ourselves. if you're reading this, you probably do too. you have a digi-positive 9-5; you write emails, texts, and generally communicate with words first--voice second; it's faster, sure. short of being Grandma who still (bless her heart) can't quite get all this new fangled stuff, you are in danger.

that's right.
you're becoming more awkward.
and likely, less understood.

that's the irony in this day and age. social networking. all points access to your friends 24/7. transparency to the enth. and yet, you still have no idea what i'm saying. and i'm an highly educated word-person-thingy.

half our country is still leaving 'h' out of "wat" and using "c" in place of 'see,' etc. there is no diction, no word choice, to convey emotion behind the txting, beyond maybe an ambiguous ":)"--and that is the primary mode of communication.

we're losing our body language, our vocal tone, our inclination to have conversations in real life, in person as well as the skills needed to decode those aspects.

we're just stuck in our heads. the Googling of thoughts, we read and intonate what we want to. personalized communication, it is what i want it to be--not necessarily what you mean for it to be. or so i'm noticing.

i had this issue this weekend. wanted to have a semi-serious chat with my sig other, who prefers only talking in txt (i prefer in-person). compromised, chatted on AIM (...no joke). and you know what? i 'walked out' of that chat not at all confident that anything i said actually was understood. the responses were just not on the level.

how do you combat your 'awkward' in an increasingly text-only driven world? do you feel less understood more frequently, or does the "140 character limit" just get you off? are you more in your head, or less? can you even tell if a person is lying by looking at them any more, or do you trust the transparency of consonants and vowels?

things to think about.

[img via.]

"quietly" pissing me off, Verizon.

Verizon has done the unthinkable. they've succeeding in pissing me off. mind you, i love(d?) Verizon. a devout Verizon advocate and recommender type. swear by Verizon's service in the NY area.

Dear Verizon,

Verizon, you suck right now. you suck for "quietly shutting down" sms txt confirmation from vzw to vzw customers.

i first noticed this september 18th and no one could tell me why i wasn't getting my little delivery notifications. and i certainly wasn't notified. nor asked--far be it.

don't you THINK that MAYBE if you're going to remove a feature that we're all used to having you MIGHT want to run that BY US?! or TELL me or something. i don't care if it saves you 1KB each way. we paid for that inclusion and now we're paying the same amount but get one less feature.

more over, there are unconfirmed rumours that it's so it can be a paid-for add-on feature. uh. why don't you just allow people who don't give a shit, of which there are quite a few, to opt-out? rather than removing it from those of us who care and are paying for it already?

how much more money is going to be wasted now that i have to ask if someone's received my txt? or do i sit in wait, wondering if i'm being ignored, or if it's a Verizon fuckup, or if their phone is off?

OKAY i know that sounds silly and teenager or something but i swear it's not. it's actually a big deal to a lot of us. especially my gen when half our lives are spent texting and half the benefit of being on Verizon is that all our friends are on Verizon so we know when we're talking to one another.

i heard that so many people complained that they're turning it back on October 1st. can anyone confirm or deny this? i'm trying to find out. i want my check marks back.

UPDATE: my Verizon rep, Cain (Kane?), tells me that delivery messages will NOT be returning October 1st. they WILL be phased out indefinitely in due course; apparently the phase out is 'on pause' right now. there is NO truth to the $1.99/mo rumour. this is what i'm told, anyway. i requested updates and made suggestions.

UPDATE 2 [next day]: 1: Cain/Kane, the service rep, just called me back. that's awesome in and of itself. yay customer service! to tell me that 2: Verizon WILL be giving SMS delivery confirmation messaging back as of tomorrow to the cancelled sectors. so many people complained that they decided 1KB wasn't worth it, i guess.

full circle, 1 of 2: 2.0 literacy "IRL"

study 1: students say "e-text" isn't writing (CNetNews)

study 2: students use "text speak" in school work (TimesOnline)

funny thing? they're talking about the same study: Pew Internet and American Life Project. so how can, in the same study, it be found that 1) students differentiate between txting and writing, and that differentiation makes them understand the time and place for each, and, 2) that in fact that differentiation means nothing and txting is used within scholarly writing.

"What's at stake here is just the ability to express oneself in more than one register," she said. "As long as children are taught to use the standard spelling and to appreciate the difference between registers, this could even be positive."
(excerpt from Times)

yes yes, i agree. there is no trouble with being "multiliterate"--able to txt-speak and write essays also. the problem here is, why, oh why, would you ever need 'LOL' in your essay? or a smiley face? why would there be a need for this expression in academic writing which a teacher must assess and decipher??

i enjoyed this comment response: "I hope those students who do use abbreviations in their essays receive an unhappy face sticker for their incorrect use of the English language." (Farore, Melbourne, Australia)

hahaha, could you imagine? i'd have been livid to get back a frowny face sticker. what does it MEAN? B-? F? it's almost as ambiguous as "A-/B+" (i hated those with a passion). pick one! oh, the teachers' revenge.

in essence, i think the CNet article about the study got it better; it seems that students believe correct spelling/grammar is vital in the academic sphere as well as central to future success in their careers. however, that doesn't stop the error, every so often, of slipping into "native tongue" (txt speak).
[though i'd still love to know when its usage is called for... "and then atticus finch defended tom robinson at trial, showing the ewells for the liars that they are--LOL!" ?]

words on twitter, 1 of 2: ad testing.

i think it's funny how twitter has become its own buzzword.
i'm waiting for the day when i hear someone doing it "twitter style" (short and to the point; no frills).

anyway.

i am disconcerted today about twitter for a number of reasons:
1) the addition of ads conversation
2) the lack of conversation... conversation

--

so yes, one is the ad testing from last night. no, i'm not pissed. the folks want to monetize. who doesn't? high chances i'm not going to love the ads, and yes, in the words of @Armano, i do feel a little 'cheated on.' the adlessness was too good to be true along with no billing.

at least the ads won't be behind my eyelids when i sleep, or broadcast into my brain (that's still creepy. i'm not sorry for pointing that out again. shame on people who celebrate its effectiveness.).

my main question is this, which brings me back to my previous post on txt messaging: will these ads be delivered into phones via txt? or will they be a part of the feed on the Twitter website? i would still find it repulsive to be charged for a txt ad Twitter sent to my phone. however, i would find it more acceptable if i had to skim through my tweets and find some ads there.

what's the plan, Twitter, eh? getting more complicated? careful you don't lose your relevancy and the reason why you're so wonderfully efficient: short, sweet, and to the point. no frills. somehow i feel ads may jeopardize that relevancy. suggestion? users choose the ads we subscribe to on our feeds. i might hate it a little less that way.

hook, line: oh no! make it stop! (pls! x_x)

not that i expected any better.

i'm taking flower donations to rest on the grave of the american english language. i know i'm supposed to shift with all this, but it makes me twitch to look at.

more thoughts (kthanxbi?)

tangerinetoad: Funny that texting abbreviations almost non-existent on Twitter. More reason to it than we're not in high school?

i'm not sure why this is. generally, i would argue that twitter has (currently) a different audience than the bff4evs of facebook--or at least that the ratio is in our favour. i am a text message fiend, however, even when i text i don't use abbreviations (unless i'm being sarcastic and referencing l33t-speak for ironic or other purposes).

i don't think it's a high school grad mentality... i think it's the mentality of bloggers. people who are communicating on a more public level than texting, and therefore secure better understanding by not using abbreviations.

even twitter pitches tweets as microblog updates. it's not like mass text messaging (even though it is!)--it's supposed to be like quick mini-blogs. i think that mentality is what encourages well thought out, generally well-spelled, and generally unabbreviated tweets.

i'm not sure though; do you use twitter? what do you think?
(ps i need friends. i feel like i have nothing to tweet about.)

stop txting me pls. (!)

subtitle: i have an adcrush on danah boyd.

if you don't know about her yet, what's wrong with you? love her or hate her but you need to know. she's doing ethnographies that are incredibly relevant to the shifts of emphasis in the ad biz. so listen up. i know some of you are, and i love you for it. [brief rundown? Agency Spy rocks my socks.]

anyway. long story short? stop texting me.
i know that email won't remain the best way to get in touch with my generation in the future, but that doesn't mean you need to turn to text messaging. as we all know, my generation is increasingly more public with our information on the internet, regardless of how we craft ourselves. key words? on the internet.

if your spamails aren't working out for you, text messaging surely won't. i would be more annoyed receiving texts (and being charged for them by my service provider!) that are unwanted than emails. not to mention, you can't opt-out of text spam like you can unsub from emails. that results in me getting cranky with my carrier.

cell phones? personal and business. spam has taken over email. if it takes over text messaging, that will a) be less productive than intended because of the unwanted setting and b) will only decrease in effectiveness.

! but i'm not all bitch and no suggestions here, folks.
you want to utilize text message spam so badly? how about you do this crazy thing called... respect. i know that means very little on the 'net these days, but it's something that might be considered over phrases like friendly stalking and privacy invasion.

why don't you offer people the ability to subscribe to text messaging for products they like? some commercials advertise this ability. because that changes the game. that means i am interested in what you're trying to sell me. you want me to subscribe to a DriveThru Records (or any other label for that matter) text messaging feed in order to tell me what concerts are now up and when tickets go on sale? GO FOR IT, i'm in.

it's all about relevance, which is what the lovely danah boyd and others keep trying to express. you can't just throw up an ad into a Facebook setting and expect people to suddenly love you and be loyal to your brand. engage with them. become relevant. i know the movement is toward mobile, but can't you be respectful about it?

a la miss danah:
"I think that most brands make mistakes because they don’t understand the social dynamics. Think of MySpace/Facebook as a public hangout space. When is it socially acceptable to go up to a group of friends hanging out at a pub or having a picnic in the park? If you treat it that way, the boundaries are much more logical. If you have something relevant to add to the conversation, you might be asked to pull up a seat/join the mat. If not, you will be seen as sketchy and annoying. You are always welcome in the backdrop, but don’t expect to be included just because you’re there. And be careful.. there’s a fine line between being an active participant on an SNS and being seen as a spammer. You’re often better off being a legitimate participant (a.k.a. buying ads) than trying to coldcall folks."

take home message: if i WANT your spam, i'll ASK FOR IT.