Text Messaging: A Literary Critique

"Sending a text message with a numeric keypad feels primitive and improvisational—like the way prisoners speak to each other by tapping on the walls of their cells in Darkness at Noon…” This from Louis Menand’s wonderfully cranky piece this week’s New Yorker. Menand makes his personal feelings on the medium clear: "People sometimes text when they are close enough to talk face to face. People like to text. Why is that?" His best line: "The most common text message must be 'k.' It means 'I have nothing to say, but God forbid that you should think that I am ignoring your message.'”