Everyone knows that the boyfriend who breaks up with his girlfriend over text message should never be talked to again.
I am over-exaggerating, but text messaging has come a long way since the first text was sent in the ‘90s. A never-talked-about, mutual understanding that some news has to be shared in person is assumed to be known by all phone owners today – which include the majority of people around the world.
A Malaysian Airlines plane took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, but its destination in Beijing was never reached. For over two weeks the families of the 239 passengers, along with the rest of the world, waited. They waited for answers to how a plane could stop contacting air traffic control and completely lose signal; they waited for reasons behind the disappearance; they waited for news, any news, and what some families received was disappointing.
On Monday, Malaysia’s Prime Minister confirmed the plane was assumed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. The passengers’ family members who were not in their hotels to be told in person were contacted via phone and some, by this text message:
“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived. As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia’s Prime Minister, we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean.”
Texters do not even accept breakups over messaging, who would want this tragic news delivered through a screen? I understand that Malaysia Airlines wanted to be in touch with the families directly and before the Prime Minister administered the message on national television, but the disappearance is a unique and sensitive incident in itself and the families have every right to be upset by this choice of communication. I send my condolences around the world to everyone affected by the plane’s supposed crash.
Now it’s time for all phone owners to learn the do’s and don’ts of what can be sent in a text message.