Texting= good or bad?

So I really liked this chapter on language. I totally think the way we say things are super important, and like it was said in class, meanings are in people, not in words. The other day I was texting one of my guy friends and we were just joking around and started being all sarcastic, and the next thing I knew, both of us were totally confused as to what we were both saying. It was crazy how fast it happened, and how much gets lost in texting translation. Even though I still do it a lot, I think this is why I don't really like texting/IMing all that much, because it takes all the emotion out of what we say, and is depriving us, I think, of having real relationships with people. I think it's a good way to have more frequent contact with people, but it should not be replacing our person-to-person contact. I definitely think new technology can have good purposes. However, as we talked about in class, Satan has a counterfeit for every principle, and I think one of the ways he uses this technology of IMing/texting communication for evil is to distract us from the relationships that are physically in front of us (it drives me nuts when people text when I'm talking to them or hanging out with them, because they're not really there), and to inhibit our social skills and our views of relationships, and especially eternal relationships. I'm thinking of Elder Bednar's CES fireside he gave here last year entitled "Things as They Really Are". Here are a couple quotes from it that have to do with my thoughts:

"Sadly, some young men and women in the Church today ignore "things as they really are" and neglect eternal relatinoships for digital distractions, diversions, and detours that have no lasting value. My heart aches when a young couple--sealed together in the house of the Lord for time and for all eternity by the power of the holy priesthood--experiences marital difficulties because of the addicting effect of excessive video gaming or online socializing. A young man or woman may waste countless hours, postpone or forfeit vocational or academic achievement, and ultimately sacrifice cherished human relationships because of mind- and spirit-numbing video and online games. As the Lord declared "Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment...::Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known" (D&C 60:13)."

"If the adversary cannot entice us to misuse our physical bodies, then one of his most potent tactics is to beguile you and me as embodied spirits to disconnect gradually and physically from things as they really are. In essence, he encourages us to think and act as if we were in our premortal, unembodied state. And, if we let him, he can cunningly employ some aspects of modern technology to accomplish his purposes. Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience."

Here's the link: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=e99385703d951210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=43d031572e14e110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD

P.S. on another note, I also realized this last week how much I say the same things to describe my emotions. Things like "I LOVE that movie..." or "I hate that whatever..." Like Sister Embree said in class, 'do you really 'love' it as much as your husband?' I'm not married, but do I love it as much as my family/friends??? Psh, of course not. So I realized I really need to expand my emotional vocabulary and use a wider variety of words. Like we learned yesterday, the average human uses only about 500 different words a day...that's pretty ridiculous in my opinion, but I can see how that would be true, since I'm most definitely not the only one who uses the same words to explain their thoughts and feelings about everything. So, after doing the emotional journals, I sort of made a list of what I think are my most frequently used words: awesome, dude, totally, like, whatever, so, sweet, very cool, pretty much, definitely, super, crazy, ridiculous, obnoxious, lame. Yep, those are the ones I say about a millions times a day (eh, there's probably a few I'm missing too). So I definitely...most positively need to expand my emotional vocabulary! :)