Even a casual visitor can find out the most common picture in any educational institution - students fiddling with their cell phones. The mobile phones have become one of the must-haves for a student. Though parents provide these gadgets to the adolescents with a different purpose in mind, that they can keep ‘track' of their wards, students have evolved their own ways of utilising them. And one of the primary services that these youngsters use is Short Messaging Service (SMS).
Youngsters send out torrents of SMSes for every occasion. From classes to parties to jokes to fixing up plans and even to request help or just to ‘catch up', you name it and students have their own way of conveying the message through an SMS. It is not a coincident that the acronyms like LOL (Laughing Out Loud) and BRB (Be Right Back) have entered the common lexicon.
Many youngsters swear that sending an SMS is much better than calling up a person. SMS will not invade your privacy and can be read at your own leisure, in contrast you are forced to ‘attend' a call, irrespective of the situation you are in, they argue.
Student plans, which mobile carriers came up with, have also helped in SMSes gaining popularity, what with the offers like unlimited SMS packages. The frequency with which SMS are sent out can also be gauged by the fact that many students boast of a capability to type out a message in seconds and that too without even giving a cursory look.
But the last month's TRAI direction to limit the number of free SMS per day to 100 is proving to be a party pooper. Though the upper limit is now extended to 200, students are still a disgruntled lot. “Sending an SMS is very convenient and you can message even between classes. Though my mother nags me that it's a waste of time, with an SMS I do not have to wait for college to catch up with my friends,” an Engineering student K. Sai Teja said. “Earlier I never used to understand how many SMSes I would send in a day. With the recent restrictions I now realise that even 200 SMSes per day are not enough,” she said.
So how are they coping up with this restriction? “It's a loss, and we have to become a bit choosy in sending an SMS. Though 200 SMSes are enough for a decent conversation, the fun factor is gone. The fact that I cannot send more than 200 SMSes a day, nags me whenever I send a message,” another student Sri Harshita bemoaned.
But can Social Media sites plug this loss? “Yes they do help us in keeping up the contact. Since most colleges, as well as homes, have internet connections we can still keep in touch, but it's only a substitute. The charm of SMS was that we could send a message from anywhere without burning a hole in our pocket money, and even a very basic handset can handle this service. The problem with using internet on mobile is that first we need to have a good handset, then not all mobile carriers give decent internet connections at cheaper rates and finally the speed of internet, at an affordable cost, is very poor. Not many of us can afford it,” she explained.
