Letter from the editor

OMG! Text champ wins $25K

A couple of weeks ago, a 13-year-old girl won $25,000 because she can type blazingly fast - on her cell phone.

Morgan Pozgar became the LG National Texting champion when she typed "Supercalifragilisticexpialid-ocious" in less than 15 seconds. She beat 200 other competitors on her way to the final, where she beat Eli Tirosh, who surprisingly is 21 years old. My guess is that he's still single.

I can't stand cell phones. (Yes, I have one.) I'm not sure I could send a text message if I wanted to. I doubt it's rocket science, but it's not anything I've ever considered to be a useful skill.

My brother text messages all the time, even when he's driving. We'll be talking about something, and suddenly he's typing away. I honestly consider punching him when that happens.

What's worse is the way people text each other. It's some weird mixture of teen over-dramaticism mixed with pig latin and symbols. Sometimes my sister text messages me, and I just ignore it because it's impossible to read. I need a whole new dictionary, or something.

That's why I really H8 (hate) it when I see these little kids running around with cell phones. I want to find their parents and ask, AYSOS? (Are you stupid or something?) What on earth does a 12-year-old need with a cell phone?

Apparently, they need cell phones to win $25,000. Pozgar said that she became proficient at text messaging because she sends more than 8,000 text messages per month.

UGTBK (you've got to be kidding).

That comes out to an average of 267 messages per day, which equates to 11 per hour or one message every five minutes. PMFI (pardon me for interrupting), but don't these kids have class? Can NE1 (anyone) explain to me how someone can send 267 text messages in one day? 4COL (for crying out loud), don't teachers or parents demand that these kids actually speak instead of typing?

Because I photograph most of the school sports for the paper, I see the younger students sitting together, and they always have their cell phones out. BION (believe it or not), they actually type messages to each other even though they are sitting 10 feet away. When I saw that, I just sat there SMHID (scratching my head in disbelief).

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a techno-grouch or anything. I love the latest and greatest gadgets, but this is out of control. And because kids can usually KPC (keep parents clueless), this new technology is causing a hi-tech set of problems.

Students are texting each other during class and cheating on tests. Teenagers can now organize illegal, after-school activity by punching in three letters: LGH (let's get high.)

Emoticons are taking over as well. Instead of human interaction, people are giving each other (((H))) and :-x (hugs and kisses) over the phone, and enemies have a whole new way to be (:-D (gossips) behind other students' backs.

All this makes me want to :-@ (scream).

But it's not all bad. Texting can be an easy way to send out an encouraging MTFBWU (may the force be with you), BOL (best of luck) or ILU (I love you). You can even send a @>—;— (rose) to your loved one.

I guess my biggest issue with texting is that it's another distraction and yet another dumbing down of America's youth. News reports show that teachers are now receiving papers written in text message form, and students - when they actually speak to each other - are beginning to use these abbreviations in their speech.

As a society, we are losing the ability to communicate with one another, and for teens, this is a disaster. What happens when they really WAN2TLK (want to talk)?