A wise person does at once,

A wise person does at once,
what a fool does at last.
Both do the same thing;
only at different times.
Baltasar Gracian

Maybe because they are too busy texting…Is text messaging out of control? Or is it just a new form of teen communication, like phone calls or passing notes in class? The NYT Science Times looks at how excessive texting has become and if health risks result.  The article does not point to the social psychology aspects of text messaging.  Now that Twitter is mainstream, we may be doomed.

Texting May Be Taking a Toll

American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

As for peace and quiet, -  “if something next to you is vibrating every couple of minutes, it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind.

“If you’re being deluged by constant communication, the pressure to answer immediately is quite high,” she added. “So if you’re in the middle of a thought, forget it.”

“Texting can be an enormous tool,” he said. “It offers companionship and the promise of connectedness. At the same time, texting can make a youngster feel frightened and overly exposed.”

Texting may also be taking a toll on teenagers’ thumbs. Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she got for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.)

Greg Hardesty, a reporter in Lake Forest, Calif., said that late last year his 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up 14,528 texts in one month. She would keep the phone on after going to bed, switching it to vibrate and waiting for it to light up and signal an incoming message.

Mr. Hardesty wrote a column about Reina’s texting in his newspaper, The Orange County Register, and in the flurry of attention that followed, her volume soared to about 24,000 messages. Finally, when her grades fell precipitously, her parents confiscated the phone.

QN:  24,000, that’s over 33 per hour if you’re up 24/7.  Assuming you sleep 8 hours per day, that’s 50 per hour…

NYT Health – Texting

Speaking of doom, Margaret Manning sent out an interesting article on materialism and religion.  Be forewarned, this is from a Christian Apologetic.  Does that deter you from reading it?

The Prosperity Drug

The catchy beat was disarming. Driving down the highway with my hands tapping out the rhythm on my steering wheel, I thought this was just another clever pop tune with bubblegum lyrics. Then the words to the chorus caught my attention:

“I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When we think it will all become clear
I’m being taken over by The Fear.”(1)

This song sung by the young British pop star, Lily Allen, was not just another slickly produced tune without substance. Allen sings of the destructive impact of materialism:

“I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I want loads of clothes and loads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars and passing each other
But it doesn’t matter because I’m packing plastic
and that’s what makes my life so fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and it’s not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
Cause I’m being taken over by fear.”

Among other things, the song laments the vacuity of mindless consumption and its pervasiveness in our society. Consumption, as Allen points out, can be like any other form of addiction, providing an initial high that hooks us, but never again delivers what it promises. Instead, it leads us down the path toward diminishing returns and never ultimately calms our fear.

Over 200 years before Ms. Allen stepped onto the pop music scene in the United Kingdom, John Wesley articulated the dangers of materialism. “I fear, wherever riches have increased,” he wrote, “the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore, I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of religion to continue long....[A]s riches increase, so will pride, anger and love of the world in all its branches."(2) Even as thousands and thousands were joining his ranks, he spoke prophetically about the inevitable decline and dissolution of this revival as a result of the increase of wealth arising from Christian diligence and frugality.

Indeed, it is well known to students of human societies that an increase in prosperity often brings with it a precipitous decline in religious involvement. After all, why would anyone need God when there is Master Card and Visa? The declining numbers in churches in the Western World seem to affirm that Wesley’s fears were warranted. Christian leaders speculate that if current trends continue in England, for example, Methodists will cease to exist in that country in thirty years.(3) Of course, long before Wesley uttered his fears, Jesus warned his disciples: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and riches” (Luke 16:13). Jesus warns of the idolatry that so easily entraps us, luring us away from faithful allegiance.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.  Read the rest here:

RZIM