Chinese now have a profession: cell phone text message composers. Some doctors are starting to deal with thumb injuries too, thanks to a booming text messaging culture. And people are getting annoyed by this new form of human-less communication. From Page One of the Wall Street Journal:
Xiangdong has an unusual Chinese New Year wish this year: that he will never have to send an obligatory text-message greeting again.
A TV documentary producer and the former host of a popular business program at the China Central Television station, Mr. Qu this year spent more than an hour during the Chinese New Year festivities replying to hundreds of text greetings he received. “It has absolutely become an annoyance and a burden,” he says.
Some people sent so many text greetings that they injured themselves. Wu Liansheng, an orthopedist at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, Hubei province, says that on Feb. 19, he treated seven patients who had thumb injuries from too much typing on cellphone keypads. [Full Text, subscribers only]
