Considered the most romantic day of the year, February 14 has turned away from hand-delivered telegrams and love letters and towards text messages filled with “Luv u” and “XOXO.”
According to a survey done by AT&T in 2009, Valentine’s Day is the most popular holiday for text messaging. Thirty-three percent of people said they plan to send at least one Valentine’s Day text message, while half of those said they plan to send more than four.
But with text messaging being used by more people for its speed and efficiency, has romance gone out the door?
“These days it’s much easier to send a love text and get my guy’s attention than a love letter and wait for him to receive it and respond to it,” said Jessica Askari, 30.
A wife and mother of three, Askari commented on how text messaging and expressing romantic messages with the help of technology can actually keep the romance alive in a relationship by allowing both parties to constantly be in touch with one another.
“Even when I started dating my husband [11 years ago] when pagers were around, we would page each other ‘143’, which translated to ‘I love you’ because of the number of letters in each word,” said Askari.
The Nielson Company recently reported that 66 percent of cellphone users send SMS/text messages. The average American woman is said to send or receive approximately 716 SMS messages monthly, with men at 555 a month.
Dina Golanbari, 59, sent love letters and cards to loved ones as a teenager. Now she feels that text messaging has become an unworthy substitute when trying to express one’s emotions.
“Even to pick up the phone and tell the person that you love them is much more intimate than ‘texting’ or ‘Facebooking’ I love you through symbols and abbreviations,” she said.
Much of the younger generation agrees.
“ I think when it comes to something of a personal nature, saying it face-to-face means a lot more than by means of text messaging or email,” said Queens College student Michael Franklin, 21.
In a three-and-a-half year relationship, Franklin said both he and his girlfriend prefer saying how they feel face-to-face rather than hiding behind technology.
“Even my girlfriend likes it if I say it straight to her face. She likes to see it rather than merely hear it,” said Franklin.
