Ordinary Average Guy

It's nice when a bit of research bears out a preconceived notion or two, and that's just what happened this week as I perused several Pew reports regarding computer and cell phone use.  It turns out, I'm what Joe Walsh calls an ordinary average guy.  The Pew foundation found that white, college educated males send or receive about 10 text messages a day, that they'd rather text than talk, and that they use their phone primarily for communication rather than entertainment.  Hey, wait a minute . . . that's me!  I just love to fit a stereotype. 

I hadn't really thought much about my phone habits until I mistakenly included text messaging in my digital diary a few weeks ago.  Each day, I counted about 10 texts and fewer actual phone conversations.  I thought that number sounded about right for me, but a little light for most people in my demographic.  Turns out, though, I represent the average with surprising fidelity. 

Like most people I know, texting is much easier and far superior than having an old-fashioned conversation.  For one thing, I love the asynchronicity of it . . . if I don't feel like responding to a text, I just ignore it and go about my business.  That's much more awkward to accomplish in the middle of a phone call.  In fact, I get kind of irritated when my phone actually rings; I often think, "now why didn't they just text me instead?" 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and, having just recently figured out how to send a picture as an MMS message, I tend to abridge my texts to photos only whenever possible.  I wonder what Joe Walsh and the rest of the Eagles would think about that.