Video Post: Texting Still A Titan

With the prevalence of social media, you'd think that Twitter and Facebook would easily be the most-used feature on smartphones. However, based on a recent Deloitte report, that's not the case. In fact, the study found that far more smartphone users texted than trafficked social media sites. I look into this and more in today's Daily Axioms Video Post.

Say What? Teens Send 3,300 Texts Per Month

Like most other millennials, I spent my high school years covertly sending text messages under my desk, afraid to go an hour without any contact with my fellow text-addicts. I also remember being scolded by my parents on a regular basis for racking up 500 or so texts a month.

Boy, have things changed.

A recent study showed that the average teenager sends over 3,300 texts per month. It's an incredible number when you think about how that breaks down. That's over 100 texts a day, or about 6 texts per hour factoring in 6 hours of sleep. It's also twice as many texts as millenials (18-24 year olds) are sending these days.

Teenage texting technology has made some advances over the years, and teens nowadays would scoff at using the same chunky flip-phone I was using back in my English class (back then, War and Peace couldn't hold my attention nearly as well as drama over the homecoming dance could).

Not only are smartphones becoming the norm in high school hallways, they're being used with greater efficiency.Both of these factors support the rise of texting so far, and more importantly show that it's likely to continue its stellar growth.

Is Twitter Responsible for Typo-Filled Resumes and Poor Job Interviewing?

As microblogging continues to take a front seat for “hottest communication fad", it's also causing some stress among marketing and public relations employers.

Going through a number of informational interviews, career development sessions and my own family’s reflections on my resume, I learned the zero tolerance policy of “typos.” Yet, we are seeing it more and more on resumes. Could it be that this has something to do with how tweets on Twitter are composed? True, SMS or text came long before Twitter was introduced – though people have been chit-chatting it up and sharing information for centuries in coffee shops, sports arenas, office environments, and the online version of this is called Twitter.

The bottom line is this: Twitter wasn’t meant for typos; that’s just what happens when you have 140 characters to get your message across. But “Plz”, “thx”, a miss of the word “the” are not only seen on Twitter feeds. They’re in resumes and cover letters. The lack of consideration or professionalism is also manifested in the utterance of a young/Gen Y job candidate saying, “This is sweet!” instead of “Thanks I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.”

What’s more evidence of this concern? This article, and a number of university reports showing communications students graduating with poor writing skills, which has been an ongoing concern. Honestly, what is the other side of this argument? (I’d really like to know in order to be better informed on this issue).

If you are looking for a job at a communications firm, please remember that just because you are ripe on social media in your resume doesn’t make it a guarantee that you are good at communication. “Traditional” still stands, so avoid the typos and lack of consideration for grammatical missteps.

Thx 4 ur consideration!

Put The Phone Down

As more issues are being raised these days about appropriate uses of technology and social media, there are some that should be obvious at this point. Less than two weeks after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger outlawed texting for California drivers, a new report has come out revealing that the engineer driving the commuter train that crashed September 12th, sent a text message 22-seconds before the crash. The accident killed 25 people and injured 130 others.

I salute Gov. Schwarzenegger for his steps towards protecting people, but no amount of laws will cover every circumstance. Common sense should be our first line of defense when thinking about appropriate uses for how we use all the tools that the social media world is bringing us.