23 Cellular Phones and Texting

23.1 Introduction

Imagine a world where you didn’t have a cell phone until college, or even know what one was… Crazy, right? That was the reality for a lot of people in the Millennial generation. While the first cellular phones were made readily available to the public in 1983, they didn’t become popular to own until the mid- to late-1990s. This huge communication advancement changed the way that society interacted. The creation of the cellular phone allowed people to talk to others in a more convenient way than previously invented house phones. Similarly, SMS texting connected people like never before, changing society in a very impactful and efficient way. Growing up in a time when these communication technologies were quickly becoming the norm, Millennials became very influenced by them.

The creation of cellular phones and text messaging have led Millennials to be reliant on technology to communicate with one another, and have an expectation of portability and convenience. Their common traits of being tech-savvy, adaptive to change, collaborative, and impatient are even more examples of how cell phones influenced Millennials’ general way of being.

Please note that throughout this chapter the terms cellular phone, cell phone, and mobile phone will be used interchangeably. The same goes for SMS, texting, and text messaging.

23.2 What Are Cellular Phones and SMS Texting?

To begin, we will first talk about cellular phones, and then move on to SMS text messaging in the next subsection.

23.2.1 What is a Cellular Phone?

I am sure you are already familiar with what a cell phone is, but we are mainly going to be examining cell phones in the Millennial time period, as opposed to current smartphones. With that being said, a cellular phone (or cell phone) is a portable, wireless device that allows users to make and receive calls. It interacts with the cellular system, consisting of towers to provide this telecommunication service. Because of its cordless design, cell phones can be taken anywhere to use, as long as there is cell service (Tien, 2001). This is what made it different from the traditional landline, who’s use was restricted to one area within arm’s distance of the wall.

To use a basic cell phone from the late 1980s, you would dial the phone number you are trying to reach on the numbered buttons. There was no way for you to store your contacts on the phone, so you would have to punch in the number manually each time. To get the best service, you would then have to extend the antenna on the top of the phone so that it can reach the cell towers better.

23.2.2 What is SMS/Text Messaging?

SMS stands for Short Message Service, and is more commonly known as text messaging. It provided users with cell phones the ability to send text-only messages containing 160 characters or less to other phones. For the first time, people were able to communicate in seconds with others from afar, without even opening their mouths to talk! While you couldn’t send pictures or videos until a few decades later, text messaging allowed users to send simple email-like messages on the go, without a clunky computer.

Because early cell phones didn’t have keyboards, in order to text, you had to click the numbered buttons to get the corresponding letter. This feature of pressing the number button multiple times to cycle through to the letter you want is called multitap. This made it take a little longer to type out a message, but it was still the most efficient way to get a message out. Text messaging was convenient because in order to accept a phone call, both parties had to be in an appropriate situation where they could speak and hear at that exact moment, but texting eliminated this aspect. Users could send and respond to messages at their leisure, without the fear that the person on the other end wouldn’t be available to receive it.

SMS uses a digital network similar to the internet, as opposed to an analog network like the telegraph which required a switchboard and operators. This feature made it more reliable and less expensive than a phone call.

23.3 How Cell Phones and Texting Came to Be

23.3.1 History and Development of Cellular Phones

Cellular phones didn’t just get invented out of thin air, they took nearly 100 years of progression from Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876. Small improvements were made to the original technology, eventually leading it to the mobile phone that dawned upon Millennials. Up until the mid 1980s, telephones were connected to the wall in a home, with no way to bring them out and about your everyday life. The first cell phone made available to the public was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, in 1983. Because of the new show stopping technology, the Motorola was very expensive, so only the extremely wealthy owned them. Since then, the improvements of cellular phones have spread rapidly.

By 1990, the mobile phone market was booming as a result of increased interest in these wireless phones. Top brands that dominated the market were Nokia, Sony, and, of course, Motorola. Phones kept being made smaller and smaller to fit the needs of its users, and made it easier to transport everyday. By this point, cell phones were about the size of a hand, with a small screen taking up about a quarter of the whole device. The rest was filled with buttons with numbers, and later letters, on them. An antenna sat on top of the phone, in order to reach cellular towers.

In 1996, flip phones were invented and gained popularity. A flip phone is a cell phone with hinges on it that becomes more compact.

The majority of American adults owned a cellular phone by the mid-1990s (Bratina, 2019). They quickly developed into part of everyday life, and habits of society were molding around these changes in expectations.

“Nokia 6160” by University of Virginia Culbreth Theater Prop Collection is licensed under CC BY 4.0

23.3.2 History and Development of Text Messaging

Short Message Service (SMS) came to life on December 3, 1992 when British engineer Neil Papworth texted his friend “Merry Christmas.” It was a success, even though his friend had no way of responding, since his phone obviously didn’t have a text messaging function. Not long after, the first phone that had the ability to text was created in 1993, and it was the Nokia 2110.

SMS was limited to 160 letters, but you had to be very patient to actually type out a message that long. Text messaging required the user to type out each individual letter from the 10-number keypad on the phone. Each number corresponded to three letters, for example the ‘number 2’ button had the letters ‘abc’ on it, and so forth. While texting was a huge convenience, people from all over still wanted something more efficient. So, in 1995 T9, the first autofill technology, was created. This cut down on the amount of time and frustration it took to send a text message on the keypad. In 1997, Nokia released its 9000i Communicator, which was the first cell phone to have a QUERTY keyboard, like on a standard computer (Trosby, 2008). In order to get to this keyboard, you had to flip open or slide up the phone.

Around the turn of the century, SMS users were finally able to text people from other networks. Cross-network texting, messaging from different service providers, allowed people to communicate with virtually anyone and everyone with a cell phone. It is no surprise that after this, text messaging became a mainstream global phenomenon and the #1 mobile data service used by cell phone users.

“SMS Test” by Scared Poet (user Scaredpoet, scaredpoet.com) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5

23.4 Impact of Cell Phones and Texting on the Millennial Generation

Like any other technological advancement, cell phones and SMS impacted those around them. While some consequences, like technological savviness, were expected, there were a plethora of unintended ones as well.

23.4.1 Intended Consequences

Mobile phones and text messaging were invented to improve communication, so it is no surprise that Millennials are very connected and collaborative individuals. These teenagers in the late 1990s took advantage of the new communication technology, using it to maintain social ties and exchange information with friends. Mobile phones allowed users to feel connected to one another because you could contact anyone in the world with just the push of a few buttons (Keyani, 2004). This ability to conveniently contact others led users to be more willing to interact and keep in touch with each other.

Another intended consequence of the creation of cell phones and texting was increasing the pace of society digitally, allowing people to be more efficient in getting information to others. Growing up in these circumstances naturally made Millennials extremely tech-savvy. It has been shown that Millennials thrive in a fast-paced, media heavy environment which overwhelms older generations. They are likely to immerse themselves in multiple aspects of the digital world, such as on their cell phones (Geraci, 2004). Another common skill mastered by Millennials is multi-tasking, which was fueled by their mobile-phone heavy environment that they grew up in. It became the norm, and even expected, to juggle multiple conversations at once; in person, talking on the phone, and texting others.

23.4.2 Unintended Consequences

Cellular phone and SMS technology has also had some unintended consequences, as well. Because they allow users to be connected to anyone at any given moment, its popularity has led to an increasing amount of interruptions of real-world conversations, as well as people flat out ignoring others to be on their phone. For example, it is now a common event that during a one-on-one conversation, the other person tells you to “hold that thought” while they either answer their phone or check a text message. This is considerably rude and gives the impression that something else is more important than the person you are talking to in person. This impoliteness is even more recognized in Millennials because they grew up with these experiences around them and consider it ‘the norm.’ Not to mention, Millennials were the first generation that grew up without learning how to maintain eye contact because of the cell phones in their hands. It has become a habit to look down at a phone as an instinct when things get uncomfortable or awkward. Also, always having the ability to edit text messages before they are sent has made Millennials less comfortable with spur-of-the-moment in-person confrontations with others (Agrawal, 2017). This struggle with face to face communication is trivial and can be traced back to the introduction of cell phones during their childhood.

Similarly, a common characteristic of Millennials is that they are impatient. The development of mobile phones and texting brought about the idea that there is always going to be in your hand or pocket to entertain you. The instant gratification of quick, reliable communication instilled this in young Millennials’ heads. Their parents and grandparents in the older generations had to wait to see somebody in person, or wait for a letter to be delivered in order to have a conversation with them. Millennials were born into a society with the privilege to connect in a matter of seconds, without the need to wait. Because of this, they weren’t able to properly develop patience skills. Highlighting a more technological side of their impatience, if something doesn’t load right away on a device or if they don’t get a response rapidly enough, Millennials are known to get very irritated.

In a more positive light, cellular phones and text messaging play a huge unplanned role in the fact that Millennials are extremely adaptive to change. Nobody could have predicted that the communication technologies from the 90s have adapted into what they are today, but Millennials had to adjust to those changes every step of the way. Not only were they introduced to a whole new means of communication at a young age on the cell phone, but they also quickly learned to text a few years later. Then cell phones and SMS had different shapes, styles, models, and methods, such as flip phones and slide phones that required different skills to use. New features were added, and old ones taken away, which constantly made Millennials have to alter the way they used their devices. The MP3 feature on mobile phones became a big hit which threw them even more for a loop. Once Millennials were finally getting comfortable with these changes, touch screen technology came out, which completely changed the game and paved the way for smartphones to come. Because of all of these changes, Millennials knew that they had to expect the unexpected, and quickly tailor their skills to use the latest technologies. This transferred over into their personal lives, helping them become quick to respond and adapt to changes.

“Friends on Cell Phones at Dinner” is licensed under CC BY 2.0

23.5 How Millennial Communication Technologies Have Evolved Useful Today

The evolution of cell phones and texting has been nonstop, and it still hasn’t slowed down since the 1990s. As we previously mentioned, SMS became the most popular technology during the turn of the century. People loved the quick ability to communicate with others from anywhere, at any time with their portable devices. However, cell phones were strictly made solely for sending messages to others, and not for delivering content. Texting soon developed from SMS into MMS, Multimedia Messaging Service, where people could send pictures and videos.

This led to the progression into a smartphone era, where cell phones could do everything- from calling, texting, and sending media to browsing the internet, taking pictures, and playing games. The first smartphone to enter the market that had all of these features was the Blackberry, in 2002. The Blackberry reigned the mobile phone world, keeping people more connected and entertained than ever before.

This all changed in 2007, when Steve Jobs created the Apple iPhone, and we entered the mobile era that we are more familiar with today, and continues to progress. In 2019, 93% of Millennials owned smartphones, which shows us how popular it has gotten to own one (Pew Research Center, 2020). You will learn about smartphones extensively in the next section, discussing Generation Z.

Chapter Summary

As you have learned, the communication technologies of the late 1900s have had major impacts on the Millennial generation, as well as future generations to come. Without the development of mobile phones and texting, who knows where our society would be today. Both technologies brought people together because they were able to communicate easily and efficiently, at any time. They no longer had the limitation of only being able to talk in person, or on their house phone connected to the wall. Growing up in such an era made Millennials more likely to be collaborative with others, tech-savvy, and multitaskers. Nobody could have predicted that this situation would also make them impolite and impatient, but very adaptive to change. Mobile phones and SMS paved the way for smartphones to be developed with even more impressive digital features. Altogether, the communication technologies invented during Millennials’ time have had an enduring impression on their behaviors, as well as society as a whole.

References

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Bratina T. (2019). Mobile Phones and Social Behaviour among Millennials. Journal of Elementary Education, 12(4), 315-330. https://doi.org/10.18690/rei.12.4.315-330.2019

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Trosby, Harris, I., Hillebrand, F., & Holley, K. (2008). Short message service (SMS) : the creation of personal global text messaging (2nd ed.). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470689899

Vogels, E. A. (2020, September 23). Millennials stand out for their technology use, but older generations also Embrace Digital Life. Pew Research Center. Retrieved November 5, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/09/us-generations-technology-use/