America is typically behind in it’s technology. When it comes to cellphones and texting, I’ve found us to be way behind. The first time I witnessed a bus full of people, all on cell phones, I was in the Middle East! I was still years away from having my own cellphone and I had never seen multiple people in one place all speaking on them in New York City.
About 3 or 4 years ago, my father who lives in the Philippines, told me that nobody likes to talk anymore, they just text. Text? He explained the typing of messages into the cell phone- voice free! That’s dumb- I thought. My dad said something about how fast thumbs could move. Now, of course Americans love to text, as do I. We text in meetings, in movies, in taxis, while talking, while emailing, unfortunatley while driving semi-trucks. I love to not talk to my friends.
The TTY was the precursor, by many years, to texting. It’s a manual telephone that deaf people can type and receive messages through. These were land lines, connected to landline telephones.
I am sure that deaf Americans caught on to texting as early as filipinos did. And I’m not at all surprised that the hearing world would like to jump in- and enjoy some non-hearing communication as well!
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