Sitemap

Member-only story

Abbreviate This

6 min readJul 3, 2025

--

Why do we continue to use texting shorthand?!

BrainyQuote

As I scroll through social media, or read messages/texts, even emails, I continue to see people reducing their posts/messages to things such as smdh, ftw, and the ever-increasingly-overused lol (really, folks? you’ve lost all credibility), and I have to ask myself-

WHY?

Why why why why why??

Yes, I know this makes me sound old, but then, I’m nearing conclusion of my 44th year in this particular existence, so maybe I am. I lived in a world before smartphones, before texting; hell, I remember a world wherein very few people indeed had cell phones. I can even, vaguely, recall a world before cordless phones, even dimly recalling a home wherein we only had rotary phones. You know, back in the dark ages?

Press enter or click to view image in full size
No kidding; this was the exact phone, down to the shade

I could understand certain texting shorthand messages back in the day. After all, when you had less than 200 characters to use, and were ten-key typing (for the kids or any other who are unaware- ten-key typing was when you had to hit the corresponding number until you got the letter you wanted- hit 2 three times for C, 8 twice for U, that kind of thing), it could take a while to write out an epic text…

--

--

James Rigdon
James Rigdon

Written by James Rigdon

Yeah, I'm a leftist- in American terms, at least. To most of the rest of the world, I'm a centrist with left-leanings.