When Texting Is Wrong [Telecom]

The Moral of the Story - The Ethicist's take on the news

When Texting Is Wrong

By Randy Cohen July 13, 2009, 11:50 pm

The Issue:

You're having dinner with your teenage kids, and they text throughout: you hate it; they're fine with it. At the office, managers are uncertain about texting during business meetings: many younger workers accept it; some older workers resist. Those who defend texting regard such encounters as the clash of two legitimate cultures, a conflict of manners not morals. If a community - teenagers, young workers - consents to conduct that does no harm, does that make it O.K., ethically speaking?

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***** Moderator's Note *****

This touches on so many "hot buttons" that I'm having my asbestos long-johns taken out of winter storage. ;-)

Let's see - just off the top of my head -

1. The "real" effectiveness of business meetings. Do younger workers see them as a tribal ritual that requires only their presence rather than their participation?

1. Generation gaps: are elder workers miffed that texters aren't content to become iron-butt bureaucrats like them?

2. Genuine social change: do texters have a better grasp of the international business climate than elders? Is texting an acceptable practice in other, less hidebound countries?

1. Are they texting as a social differentiator that bonds them to their peers? Is it an electronic nosing of their thumbs from a generation which has never had to rely on its leaders for any important decision?

2. Might it be a fad that will die out like Pet Rocks and Palm Pilots and paper organizers?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Bill Horne

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