The Texting Life of College Women
At breakfast yesterday I observed two very attractive** college women (from UC Santa Barbara) looking at their PINK Motorola phones. They were laughing, showing each other the screen of their phone, and in general having a great time.
As I left, I stopped and ask them what was up. As I suspected, they were sharing text messages (SMS) from boy (and other) friends. They said they text all the time, because their mobile phone plan includes unlimited text messages.
One volunteered: “My Dad started texting me last week. That’s really weird.”
The other sorority sister said she has a girlfriend who baby-sits. While the parents are away, they text their babysitter to check on how things are going.
The two sophomores thought it was pretty funny that a blogger asked about their texting habits.
**The only reason I noticed these women was because I saw another guy STARING at one of the women. As a responsible citizen journalist, I felt a sense of duty to check out what he was checking out.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
March 28th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
A skeptical/hypothetical view of what might have taken place…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_marketing
Undercover marketing (also known as buzz marketing, stealth marketing, or by its detractors roach baiting) is a subset of guerrilla marketing where consumers do not realize they are being marketed to. For example, a marketing company might pay an actor or socially adept person to use a certain product visibly and convincingly in locations where target consumers congregate. While there, the actor will also talk up their product to people they befriend in that location, even handing out samples if it is economically feasible. The actor will often be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even noticing it.
March 29th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Hi ron,
just thought i would pop in and read your blog. i couldnt help but notice this one, so i thought i would chime in. So in the US, its not so common to text because its so cheap to talk! but in japan, about 95% of our phone usage consists of texting! why? because in japan there is no such thing as `unilimited` for our cell phones. no unlimited talk time, no unlimited texting. so its too expensive to talk. so when i talk the bus, or train, or i`m just walking around, all you see is people staring at their phones pushing buttons.
so i read not so long ago that microsoft has a new ultra mobile mini comupter that can do many things. in japan, we also have something like that….our device can download 2000 songs, can be a gps car navigation, be a TV, a radio, a quality digital camera with memory card, you can surf the internet, you can send and receive info through infrared, it has an electronic english/japanese dictionary on it, you can pay for items at a store with it, play games, and more…..Its called….A Cell Phone! Yep!
So i read before you were looking to buy a new phone…you interested in one of these? haha. I know its not quite the super little computer microsoft cooked up, but it surely blow the phones we have in the US out of the water!
Keep up the good work! and next time you decide to innocently ask beautiful college women about their phones, you can add all the info about phones in japan into your conversation. it will buy you some more time! haha.
Sayonara!
May 17th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
[...] P.S. If you are especially astute, or have a good memory, you may wonder if the Cajun Kitchen was where I observed Texting Behavior. [...]