Not to be outdone by Thomas Edison’s “Mary had a little lamb,” my daughter Laney’s first text message via the Kindle Fire she purchased with her birthday money was “<3;);)<3;);)<3” (i.e., heart, winky face, winky face, heart, winky face, winky face, heart). Um, not sure if I’m ready for this. Eight minutes later she followed it up with “I love you mom,” which was followed three minutes later by “I love you sooooooo much.” Punctuation malfunctions aside, I suppose this whole thing could grow on me.

As with most novelties, the texting blitz went on most of the morning, throughout the day and into the night. I received messages of “marry Christmas,” “Happy thanksgiving,” “Its almost Christmas :P” and “I am happy” (followed by 13 smiley faces in lieu of a period). Ten messages in two hours 20 minutes and that was just the very beginning.

By 11:15 am she had gone beyond texting friendly, passing comments and moved into more practical utilization. “Can we go now” (no question mark). By 6:30 pm we entered silly territory as she pretended that our dog, Rex, was the one texting. “Hello mom love you this is rex” (Rex apparently has the same punctuation issues, capitalization missteps and love for his mother as Laney). At 7:16 pm, via text, I even received the good news that I’m the best mom ever, a much higher honor than anything Pulitzer or Nobel has to offer if you ask me.

Despite some pretty incessant beeping, it wasn’t long before I began to realize that Laney’s discovery of a new, often-criticized communication tool really wasn’t much of a bad thing. To my surprise, her “written” language was much more focused, succinct and heartfelt than I have known her spoken language to be. She had even taken on a more happy-go-lucky persona in texting form than I think of her in regular, everyday, face-to-face life.

Part of me was concerned. How could my child show such a different side of herself in writing than she shows in daily verbal conversation? I suppose I might as well be asking the same question of myself. I’m not necessarily a different person in writing than I am in conversation, but it is much, much easier to express myself in such a manner.

In fact, things like email, texting and especially social media are a huge boon for people who think more clearly when their fingers do the talking, me very much included. My daughter is articulate but can become easily frustrated when thoughts in her head don’t roll quite as smoothly off of her tongue (I think that’s what’s happening anyway). She tends to either lash out, flake out, enter silly mode or shut down altogether when her mouth doesn’t match her mind. I can completely relate.

I suppose I could worry about the disconnect as a deficiency, but I’ve grown rather tired of everyone’s idiosyncrasies being considered obstacles to be hurdled rather than strengths to be honed. If you write better than you speak, great. If speak better than you write, fantastic. Either way, you’re lucky enough to have a communication channel that suits you.

Of course, with all pluses come some minuses. The cute mini love letters Laney was sending me via text turned into a few pleas to know where I was and when I would be home when I slipped out to do some Christmas shopping. “My mommys the best” became “Are you ther yet” and “Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasss come home.” My 7-year-old little girl suddenly became a 47-year-old mother whose 16-year-old hadn’t returned home with the car. Apparently, cell phones are as much for keeping track of parents as they are for keeping track of children.

Laney learned from the best. A rare night out with just my husband generated a text from our 9-year-old that pleaded, “Mom it’s jack can you get back in like 10 minutes.” My response as to why resulted in a short and sweet “I’m tired.”

Still, the positives seem to definitely outweigh the negatives at this point. My kids’ texts have allowed me to quickly pinpoint their grammar and punctuation hiccups, and they seem much more receptive to correcting texts than to correcting homework. It has also helped me identify their strengths. Laney’s inaugural text, for instance, proved that she knows her way around a pattern, be it hearts and/or winky faces. Most of all, though, it seems to give them a confident voice for those moments, or even entire phases of childhood, when they’re just not sure how to say it out loud

Shannon and her husband, Michael, are raising three children in Sylvania. Email her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Family Practice, Shannon Szyperski, texting

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2012 at 10:23 am and is filed under Arts and Life, Family Practice.
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Ohio lawmakers and police officers aren’t LOL-ing about texting and driving, especially when it comes to younger drivers. The state texting/driving ban, featuring harsher rules for those younger than 18, went into effect Aug. 31. The City of Toledo has had a ban since 2010.

However, the bans differ and it is up to police whether to charge drivers under the state or city code.

“Both laws are on the books so the officer has the option to cite under whichever code the officer feels is appropriate,” said Toledo Police Sgt. Joe Heffernan, adding that most officers are inclined to charge under city code. The city fine is $130. The state fines are up to $150 for adults and up to $300 for those younger than 18.

No officers will enforce the statewide ban during the six-month warning period, which began Aug. 31. After six months, officers can charge any driver younger than 18 for using any electronic wireless communication device outside of the ban’s exemptions. Texting and driving will be considered a primary offense, meaning the officer needs no other reason to pull the teen driver over. Talking on a cellphone is also included in the ban for the teens.

For drivers older than 18, the ban prohibits driving while using devices to write or read a text-based communication. However, texting while driving is a secondary offense for adults — meaning officers need another reason to pull texters over.

The Fremont-area state Rep. Rex Damschroder, who sponsored the bill that led to the ban, said he originally intended texting and driving to be a primary offense for everyone.

“My full intentions are to go back and revisit [the ban] in the next general assembly,” Damschroder said. A 16-year-old was texting and driving in Damschroder’s district when she crossed the centerline and killed a motorcyclist, he said.

Damschroder

Exemptions

There are also several exceptions to the state ban. Drivers younger than 18 can use their cellphones for emergency purposes and when their vehicle is in a stationary position and outside of the travel lane. Young drivers can also use navigation devices so long as they are hands-free or voice-operated and not programmed while driving.

There are 10 exemptions for adults, including using devices for navigating and hands-free texting. Adult drivers can also use their devices for emergencies and when their vehicle is in a stationary position and outside of the travel lane. They are also permitted to enter a name or phone number to make a call and to receive messages or navigation alerts regarding safety, emergency traffic, weather and the vehicle’s operation.

In Toledo, the city ban enables officers to pull over anyone they see texting as a primary offense.  However, in 2011, Heffernan estimated there were about four citations for texting and just one as of April 2012.

That may be because the ban has encouraged drivers to put down their phones, Heffernan said.

“One of the main values of the ban is the awareness part of the law, to get people thinking, ‘Wow, I used to do this, but it’s against the law now,’” he said.

Officers are also more likely to write citations for something other than texting. For instance, if a driver is texting and rear-ends someone, the officer would write a ticket for “assured clear distance.” The texting is also usually done by the time the citation occurs.

Joe McNamara, City Council president, said the lack of citations could be because the police are focused on other things and lacking in manpower.

“You enforce the dangerous things more vigorously than traffic issues,” he said, adding however, “It’s still a danger; it’s still a problem.”

Councilwoman Lindsay Webb voted against the ban in late 2009.

“There was a reason I voted no, because I thought the enforcement was sort of difficult,” she said, adding that the different city borders and laws could have made things tough.

Webb said at the time that she felt the issue needed to be addressed on a statewide basis. Now that it has been, “Hopefully, we’ll raise a new crop of drivers who don’t text and drive,” she said.

Drivers between 16 and 20 are traditionally the leading group in terms of fatal traffic accidents, said Lt. Anne Ralston of the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP).

“Those are the most dangerous years without texting, but to throw texting in with a beginning driver, it’s just a real dangerous combination,” Damschroder said.

When Damschroder started his term, “I was kind of surprised to learn Ohio didn’t have a ban against [texting],” he said. “There is no way you can safely drive your car and take your eyes off the road and text. You just can’t do it.” Ohio is the 39th state to have a texting ban.

The representative had bigger hopes for his bill. “I can’t understand why [the Ohio Senate] would want to weaken the bill, but they succeeded,” he said, adding that maybe Senate members didn’t want to get pulled over themselves.

Personal freedom was one reason politicians gave Damschroder for not wanting a ban.

“[Texting and driving] infringes on the personal freedom of drivers coming down the opposite side of the highway, those Ohioans who expect the safest possible highway you can make,” he said.

Ralston said other distracted driving behaviors — from tending to a child to picking something up off the floor to eating —  also pose a threat.

“There’s a wide variety of things that can distract,” she said. From 2009-11 in Ohio, there were 31,231 crashes, including 74 fatal crashes and 7,825 injury crashes, that were caused by distracted driving, according to the OSHP. Numbers for how many accidents are caused by texting aren’t kept yet.

On average, sending or receiving text messages takes a driver’s eyes from the road for 4.6 seconds. At 55 mph, this is enough time to go over the length of an entire football field, according to the OSHP.

For more information, visit www.distraction.gov.

Tags: Joe McNamara, Lindsay Webb, Rex Damschroder, texting

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2012 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Community, Transportation.
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There are a lot of reasons to avoid going to see a film. It can be a pricey and dicey proposition, laying down $10 or more for a film that may not provide a quality experience. There are usually people in the theater who think they are in their living room, feeling free to talk and behave as if they are the only people affected by their poor manners. With large screens, high-definition pictures and surround sound, many films can be enjoyed at home to their full impact.

So, yes, there are plenty of deterrents to going to the movies. I go anyway. A dark theater is a doorway to creativity that opens up amazing opportunities for the imagination. The 24 frames spooling by each second offer alternative realities and artistic possibilities that television rarely matches. Books and music offer specific platforms for unique artistry, but the movies take elements from both of those expressions and transform them into psyche-shaking experiences.

MJR, the only first-run theater in our part of Lenawee County, and Rave Motion Pictures, which operates the Toledo-area theaters, are both to be commended for staying ahead of the technology curve and for offering family incentives and special showings (Rave is showing The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” on the big screen this weekend). Rave has also brought a level of community cooperation and willingness to try new ideas that had been missing from the local cinema scene.

The obnoxious chatterboxes can be shushed or tuned out; even at kids’ movies, which make up the majority of our choices, the right movie can transport  viewers far away from the “peas-and-carrots-peas-and-carrots-peas-and-carrots” white noise.

It pleases me a great deal that our sons Evan (almost 6) and Sean (almost 4) have learned how to behave at the movies. There may be an occasional potty break, but they know to respect the silence and they are the perfect audience to suspend disbelief and become lost in the story. It is true, there are more underachievers like “Yogi Bear” and “G-Force” than winners like “Toy Story 3,” but I love the idea that the boys are growing to love movies as much as their parents. Because their television time is limited, movies are even more special to them.

But a dark cloud is gathering that may upset even my love for the movies (and I once sat through a full screening of “Casablanca” in a Washington, D.C., theater while some jerk sat smoking a few rows up. Theater management did not seem willing to take any action, so those in the rows behind him were forced to incorporate the smoke as a sensory addition to the scenes in Rick’s Café).

During a recent CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, the possibility of allowing cellphone and texting were discussed. As reported on Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com, “Regal Entertainment CEO Amy Miles says that her chain currently discourages cell phone use ‘but if we had a movie that appealed to a younger demographic, we could test some of these concepts.’ For example, she says the chain talked about being more flexible about cell phone use at some screens that showed ‘21 Jump Street.’ ‘You’re trying to figure out if there’s something you can offer in the theater that I would not find appealing but my 18-year-old son’ might.

“IMAX’s Greg Foster seemed to like the idea of relaxing the absolute ban on phone use in theaters. His 17-year-old son ‘constantly has his phone with him,’ he says. ‘We want them to pay $12 to $14 to come into an auditorium and watch a movie. But they’ve become accustomed to controlling their own existence. Banning cell phone use may make them feel a little handcuffed.’”

There are already people who set off little squares and rectangles of glowing lights by checking their phones during the movie. That’s tolerable in small amounts but a nuisance as a repeat offense. I am guilty of being over-attached to my phone, but since the president has never called me to ask for anything, I am confident he won’t call during the two hours it takes to see a movie. I can shut the phone off or leave it in the car for two hours without getting the shakes.

Deadline.com reported that at least one theater owner agrees with me. “Tim League is CEO of Alamo Drafthouse — a small chain that makes a point of throwing out customers who talk or text during a film. ‘Over my dead body will I introduce texting into the movie theater,’ he says. ‘I love the idea of playing around with a new concept. But that is the scourge of our industry. It’s our job to understand that this is a sacred space and we have to teach manners.’ He says it should be ‘magical’ to come to the cinema. But Miles shot back that ‘one person’s opinion of magical isn’t the other’s.’”

Perhaps Miles should find a field of work in which she can exercise her derision of other people’s opinion of magic, such as divorce lawyer or puppy kicker.

Rudeness is a big enough obstacle to keep some people away from the movies.

Encouraging rudeness by opening the floodgates for texting and using the phone is a quick way to sour an art form that should be about communal experience, not individual boorishness.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofree press.com.

Tags: Lighting The Fuse, Michael S. Miller, MJR, Rave Motion Pictures, texting

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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According to a news release, “Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner and City Officials will hold a 1 p.m. press conference to announce an ordinance prohibiting the use of text messaging devices while operating a vehicle. The press conference will be held on the 22nd Fl. Conference Room of Government Center.”

More on the story as develops.

Tags: texting

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 10:53 am and is filed under Breaking News, City of Toledo, Community.
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