Are we forgetting how to talk?

I found this article today, describing a rather extreme case of text-addiction. It seems one young girl sent over 14 000 text messages to her friends during one month. The phone bill was 440 pages long. Apparently it's more likely that teenagers send around 1700 a month (which is still more than 50 a day!). 

The thing I found interesting was this snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald article:

"At a karaoke birthday party, Reina texted her best friend, who was sitting right next to her while others were singing, the Post said."

This is not unusual. Even in our youth group we see kids "talking" to each other via their mobiles as they sit together.

I can see how it appeals, for teenagers at least. Research has shown that in early adolescence, young people can lose the ability to read nonverbal cues as their brains move into another stage of development. So they can't as easily tell what you're thinking from your facial expression. They can, however, decipher text clues like smileys, so if a 13 year old girl is texting her bestie sitting next to her, she's perhaps more attuned to what they're thinking than if they were speaking to each other. 

The problem I see, however, isn't with losing their ability to hold a conversation. It's more to do with attention.

Texting is something most people do while they're doing something else. For young kids, it helps them to keep only half an ear on other people. Some girls I talk to now split their attention between the conversation and their phone, breaking off any time they hear the funky little "message alert" tone. 

We seem to be losing the ability to concentrate on a single thing. We study while listening to an iPod as we text and MSN our friends. We watch TV while playing our DS and/or texting as well as occasionally talking to the people in the room with us. 

It becomes harder to Be still, and know the Creator of the universe.