The Saiko

Sometimes we get a text messages with abbreviated words that take a few seconds to decipher.  Let’s be honest, there are times where you have no idea what in the hell the person is trying to convey to you and you want to toss your cell phone into the lake (if you live near one).  DTXTR is a new creation from LG that demystifies the often cryptic language of the text messaging used by teens and your techie friends.

DTXTR is a simple application that translates more than 2,000 words teens and other perpetrators of SMS text message abbreviations use every day.  Not only does it translate from text language to English, it translates English to text language.  If you have kids or a friend that insists on texting in abbreviations, this is the tool you’ve been waiting for to help you make some sense of it all.

For those of you keeping score at home, there are 3 types of texters.  There is a high likelihood that you fall into 1 of these categories:

1. Crusty Anti-Texter (aka, Crusts):  People that don’t text at all.  Usually these people are over 45 years old.  They insist on speaking to people on the phone and don’t want to waste time trying to text.  They feel that texting is impersonal and that it is too time consuming.
2. Frequent Texter (aka, Freeqs):  People that text quite a bit to give updates.  This is most of the population in the USA.  They do a healthy mix of calling and texting, but reserve texting for early morning or late night communications, updates if they are running late to meet a friend, during meetings when they can’t pull out their phones, etc.  This group also finds themselves typing grammatically correct texts flush with punctuation.
3. Fearful Texter (aka, Fearlies):  People that are afraid to communicate over the phone and would rather just text most of their communication.  This is usually the teens and other people that are typically anti-social.  These are the people that require an unlimited texting plan with their phone carrier.  Their texting style is rife with abbreviations, lack of punctuation and sometimes cryptic because they use words that are unique to their peer groups.

The DTXTR is a fun tool.  It’s not a complete translator, as the majority of English words don’t have an abbreviation in the text world.  We feel confident that by the end of the year LG will have updated this fun toy with thousands more words.  The downside of this light-hearted trend is that some physicians and psychologists feel that the increase usage of texting among teens has lead to sleep deprivation, anxiety, distraction in school, plummeting grades and many other ill affects.Who knew that mobile phones could have such an affect on an entire generation?

Now Twitter makes more sense.  The deep need to be heard and accepted and the requirement of typing in text abbreviations sometimes to fully convey a thought makes Twitter a God-send to some people; a lot of people, actually.  The Fearlies may be taking over the world sooner than you realize.  Get ready to say cranky phrases like that old guy that used to live next door to you when you were a kid:  ”What’s wrong with kids these days?  When I was growing up, we didn’t have cell phones and texting.  We had to use email!!  These kids don’t know how good they’ve got it.”