I have noticed a disturbing way that many people text. They send texts one sentence at a time. So you open your phone and see that you have six texts, and you open to find they are all from the same person at the same time. What could easily have been one text is six texts.

Why do I care?

Because sending six texts makes my phone buzz six times. And seeing that I have 14 texts is downright alarming because I immediately think I owe responses to 14 people, when in reality it is just two or three Micro-Texters.

Have I missed something? Is everyone doing this but me?

Nobody I know texts that way.

If you text as if you're typing, you end up microtexting... every time you hit return you send a new message.

For a lot of the message apps, the option, which used to just put in a return and not send, seems to have been disabled.

I'm seeing it. Very annoying.

Of course, I'm one of those weirdos who can send a four paragraph text with proper sentence structure and punctuation.

Get thee an iPhone.

It’s smart enough to only buzz only once when it get multiple messages from the same source in close succession, and the user interface does distinguish “return/new line” from “send.”

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Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I'm seeing it. Very annoying.

Of course, I'm one of those weirdos who can send a four paragraph text with proper sentence structure and punctuation.

I’m a member of that club.

But I get micro texts all the time.

What bothers me more is a very long text with just one paragraph. Readability, people.

It's generational. My younger friends do it, and I'm talking ten years or so younger, not children. I think we're going to have to get used to it.

As I think about it, though, my children don't do it. So maybe it's only 40- to 50-year-olds and not the wave of the future.

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Get thee an iPhone.

I'll have to listen for that. I have an iPhone.

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Originally posted by Mary Anna:
It's generational. My younger friends do it, and I'm talking ten years or so younger, not children. I think we're going to have to get used to it.

As I think about it, though, my children don't do it. So maybe it's only 40- to 50-year-olds and not the wave of the future.

I do it depending on what I’m talking about and the person I’m talking to. 45 here so maybe you’re right, Mary Anna. I also use punctuation and actual sentences.

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ROFLACGU

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Originally posted by dolmansaxlil:

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Originally posted by Mary Anna:
It's generational. My younger friends do it, and I'm talking ten years or so younger, not children. I think we're going to have to get used to it.

As I think about it, though, my children don't do it. So maybe it's only 40- to 50-year-olds and not the wave of the future.

I do it depending on what I’m talking about and the person I’m talking to. 45 here so maybe you’re right, Mary Anna. I also use punctuation and actual sentences.

I'm sure many books are being written about the rhetoric of texting and social media. I generally punctuate my texts for clarity, but will often leave off the final punctuation to show that I am not ignorant of the coolness factor

(See! I just did it in the previous paragraph!)

However, if I were microtexting, I could avoid those periods by hitting send after every sentence. I'm thinking that microtexters might be a transitional group between people of my vintage and younger people who are digital natives and thus know how to "unpunctuate" messages with multiple thoughts in them. Or maybe not...how would I know...

I am sorry.
I will never do it again. (have not been texting with any WTFers recently.

I started doing that recently. Did not realize how annoying it can be. Thought it would make it easier to read and I wanted what I had entered gone.

Will go back to my more established vices.

Haven't seen it. Probably because I'm on an iPhone and so are everyone I know.

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Originally posted by CHAS:
Will go back to my more established vices.