Nowadays, the cellular phone is considered as man’s best friend.

Everyone would think that I was just mistaken in saying that a dog is man’s best friend. No doubt, dogs still are our best buddies. But just because of the unstoppable popularity of the text messaging feature of cellular phones, the above statement is very much applicable, especially on my part.

For the past four months when I first rode the bandwagon of texting which became the new status symbol of the youth, my life has been totally dependent on my cellphone. Even to the point that it became my best friend, although inanimate and could only function if controlled by humans. But this kind of relationship between me and my cellphone is not that just an owner-object or a master-slave relationship. It has even surpassed the bounds of human relationships man ever knew and bonded in his journey in this life. Without it, I would then feel that my life will never be the same without it, and in every minute in this world I would uncontrollably use it to the very extent that I would miss my other obligations in life just because it has been dictating my tempo.

I am a text addict. I am beholden to the modern "drug" that is currently enslaving thousands of members of Generations X and Y like me.

No, it is not the literal "drug" that we know of. It is more than the "drug" or substance that is being peddled illegally by the scoundrels on society who would create nothing but more trouble in this strife-wrecked world, because I think the situation in which I am into right now is tantamount to these. But it is not even the "drug" that was created by geniuses to remedy our common household ailments or perfect some bodily malfunctioning, not even those materials that we get from our neighborhood botika. Texting is the modern-day opium that is ravaging digital cellphone subscribers like me.

At first it seemed that there is nothing wrong with texting. It was not so strange for me since my eldest sister is working for that telecommunications firm in which most texters subscribe to. I was back then borrowing her phone whenever I want to keep in contact with classmates, but because of the rising popularity of texting I thought that it would be better if I’d have a unit and line of my own so I can be "the master of my texting destiny." I was then a subscriber to its number one rival, and I was successful in selling my good old unit (which I owned for two and a half years but seldom used it because of frequent disconnections due to irresponsible use) in which its proceeds I used to procure a new one. Good thing, and in not so short time I was formally initiated into the world of text messaging, which for me then seemed to be as new as when Columbus discovered America centuries ago.

In all the times that I’ve become a slave to that little cutie thing (for some say that my cellphone model is as cute as the blue skies), I saw to it that I would responsibly use it only for emergencies as what my sister and my other homebodies (except my parents, who until now didn’t know that I have text messaging capability on my cellphone) would say. But just like anything that can be abused, I indiscriminately used it to the extent of having around 40 textmates at a time. My sister would even lecture to me that we addicts contribute much to the congestion of the networks, thus the dreaded "message sending failed" analogy that texters get mad at.

But the empire indeed strikes back. In order to curb abusive texting, that company started cracking down on us at the turn of this month. It was like a forced rehabilitation from the "evils" of texting, similar to drug rehabilitation. No known addict was spared from that scheme which they concealed under altruistic motives. And until now I and my co-subscribers are still feeling the brunt caused by this surprise move, which makes us feel that we cannot just withdraw from the addiction caused by texting. Which makes me say, "Damn!" everytime I cannot send due to excess from the allocated monthly messages and at the same time act like a drug addict in a rehabilitation center who is craving for more drugs because these substances entered into his system. In my case, habitual texting has entered my system too and not any outside force would make me withdraw from this situation as of now. I even harbored ill feelings to the persons behind the move and the texters who acted as traitors by supporting that move.

Well, what lies ahead of me, now that I could no longer function as I used to when it comes to texting? It’s very much difficult to withdraw from a social drug that has entered my bloodstream. For as long as I keep on craving more, more and more text and at the same time craving for contact with the friends I’ve made through text, I would never get out of this life and move on.

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