Text-messaging

Charles McGrath, a writer for The New York Times, in his article "The Pleasures of the Text" covers the nature of text-messaging, giving examples of how users achieve efficiency and style, and he writes about its greater use outside of the U.S. Moreover, he argues that text-messaging is

a kind of avoidance mechanism that preserves the feeling of communication - the immediacy - without, for the most part, the burden of actual intimacy or substance.

That is, text-messaging lets people feel that they are connecting to others without actually doing it.

The article is short but informative. The claim about avoiding intimacy and substance is interesting. Is this a byproduct or a subconscious desire? Is it even an accurate description? I can imagine that when one is constantly text-messaging, not much is new, and so not much is of substance. In fact, when I ask my 6-year-old son what he did in school today, he almost always says, "I don't know." Is he avoiding intimacy? Certainly not when he climbs all over me, trying to get my attention. Similary, when someone asks me what is new, I generally respond, "Not much." Rather than an avoidance of intimacy, I imagine it's simply the reality of much being the same. Yet people ask the same questions every day as a matter of keeping social contact. It's not clear why text-messaging should be considered different from normal conversations.