The reason why he learned to SMS, at 70
My dad will turn 70 this year. In about a month. And he sent his first text message a week ago. They were all addressed to his grandson, of course, but they were obviously sent to my phone. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about the reason behind the text message (why now, for instance?) or the 2 messages that followed the day after. But today, he revealed to me why. He was explained by his good friend (who is ironically a total gadget geek -- by comparison, my dad does not know his way around a computer PERIOD...like you give him a mouse and suddenly your desktop is missing all sorts of things, your taskbar displaced, misplaced or altogether just gone) that text messaging is more or less replacing voice calls, particularly among the younger generation. My dad suddenly became convinced that in order to communicate with his grandson (in the very distant future, but still a concern to him) in any sort of meaningful way, he had better master text messaging RIGHT NOW. In fact, his 2nd SMS indicated "just practicing sending these", which now makes more sense.

I thought that was very cute.
- posted by Connie @ 1/19/2010 09:04:00 PM