Texting and Manners

Sounds kind of like an oxymoron doesn't it? Those 2 terms just don't seem to go hand in hand and it really gets to me.

When you're standing there talking to someone or out visiting a friend and your phone rings common courtesy says either don't answer it or if you need to to keep it brief and then usually apologize to the other person. Right?

Why then is it ok to be talking to one person but carrying on a separate conversation with another through texting? When you do that your talking pauses because you can't literally do both at the same time, most of the time anyhow.

I'm sorry but if you do this you're RUDE! If the person you're talking to in person isn't the one you want to talk to the most then finish your conversation and move on so you can carry on your virtual conversation with the other person or make that person wait until your done with the one you're with.

Then you've got the people, mostly teens it seems, who are so anti-social it's scary because they'd rather have their faces glued to a phone screen testing w/ their friends instead of getting out and talking to them in person. What kind of society will this lead to in 20-30 years? that thought scares me. Yes you can say things you may not have said otherwise to some one's face but expression can not be read and anything you type can be misinterpreted. And, well, if you can't say it to their face then it's should be said you coward.

So, if you text at all, please keep these basic rules and guidelines in mind in the future:
1-talk to one person at a time, if one of them is not there with you
2-if you'd rather talk to the person who's not there with you then excuse yourself from the other person, make up an excuse if you have to
3-look up once in awhile, you might see someone you'd have otherwise missed
4-that place where food goes, sound can come out too and those things on the sides of your head that you like to hang things from and stick things in to, you can use those to hear and listen with. Combined you can come up with an amazing way to communicate that does not require paying extra on a bill to use.
5-if you must text excessively, wait until you're in the privacy of your own home/room, I prefer my kids not bear witness to your social short comings, I prefer they communicate the cheap and more effective way.

Read them, remember them, memorize them and live by them. You too can help to save our society from a social dilema.