A Pew survey on text use by adults, including Boomers.

In this 2005 phone survey of about 1,500 American adult cell phone users, 27% said they had used text messaging in the last month.  Not surprisingly, most texters were in the 18-27 cohort (67% of these cell owners texted) compared to 31% of cell phone owners in Generation X (ages 28-39), about 15% of cell owners among Baby Boomers (age 40-58), and only 7% of cell owners over age 60.

Of course, cell use was not as ubiquitous then as it is now; only 76% of GenXers owned cells, (described as “fully 76%”in the article; my, times have changed) and about 71% of Boomers. This article doesn't just report the numbers, though. It wraps them in the context of  “new notions of what it means to be ‘present’ with someone else,” (Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.)

Nineteen essays by the high-regarded Katz and his Rutgers colleague discuss national and comparative perspectives, micro-behavior, public performance and other topics,  and end with their theory of Apparatgeist (loosely, the ‘spirit of the machine’, that life of its own, the symbiotic relationship between it and its owner).

Texting and baby boomers receive little attention here. But the essays are rich in the ironies that surround texting. Robbins and Turner provide a strong history of the serendipitous  development of texting, reminding us that event though texting is now seen as a young people’s practice being adopted by club-footed Boomers, the early adopters of SMS were mostly middle-aged people. Texting was never meant for wide scale person-to-person communication anyway; it was originally created for stocks, sports and other one-way messaging.

Masesneimi and Rautianen discuss another irony, the fact that a text isn’t always the quick, casual, private communication that it seems to be. There may be a “culture of concealment” (Ling and Yttri, in their chapter on Norwegian teens) that makes SMS attractive to teens, but it’s often breeched for their peers, if not their parents. There’s a great deal of collective reading and composing among young texters, and the lovelorn sometimes rely on talented friends to help them craft their texts.

This encyclopedic study provides a broad, strong background for anyone studying the impact of mobile communication on any culture. Topics and chapters include our networks and our lives, the  worldwide diffusion of wireless communication, differentiation of users by age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, mobility in everyday life, the mobile youth culture, time flow and mobile networks, the language of wireless communication, social movements, political power, and communication and global development.

The authors also present a final, albeit broad,  list of the impact that mobile communication on or culture, including safety and autonomy; “relentless” connectivity ;instant communities; the blurring, mixing, and recomposing of a variety of social practices in a variety of time/space contexts; users as producers of content; consumerism, fashion, instrumentality, and meaning; the transformation of language;  communication autonomy, and the social problems that come with all of them.

Researchers studying generational use of cell phones would be interested in their history of texting¬a tool for young people who needed discreet, cheap communication. One of their “fundamental hypotheses” is that there is a youth culture that uses mobile communication to “express and reinforce” itself.  This seems to be a direct contrast to the attitude of Boomers, who seem to use texting for mostly practical reasons–and to attempt to get a peek into their children’s culture.

Thesis: While Google's Android relies on a solid economic model, Google will need to improve upon the operating system's user friendliness in order to attract developers and ensure long-term success among consumers.

Mosio is a mobile community enabling you to
text any question from your phone
and have it answered by real people (other Mosio members).