The story referenced Older Americans , people between the ages of 45 and 54. For those of us who saw 54 in the rear view mirror a while back the reference is startling. We think of ourselves as middle age, young middle age.

These older Americans are the fastest growing group of people who send text messages. I'm not sure of the exact verse, but somewhere in Revelations it mentions old people texting as a sign of the End of Days.

The Woman Who's Garbage I'm Responsible For asked her niece why text messaging is so popular these days. She was told because it allows conversation without commitment.

Guys have a reputation for being afraid of commitment. We're not. Most of us have 20- year relationships with old baseball gloves, recliners, and underwear. We are only afraid to commit half our stuff and all our future decisions to someone who is just waiting for the ceremony's end to tell us how they really feel. But real and total lack of commitment resides much more in the female body.

When I was a teenager, AM radio was pretty much it for music in the car. We all had our favorite stations and were loyal to the disc jockeys on those programs. The dial never strayed to another location.

Then someone invented those little preset buttons. Now you could program several stations into the radio and change whenever a really bad song came on. It was obvious early on girls were better equipped at this. Guys would wait out a bad song, confident the next one would be better.

Girls were more likely to change stations at breakneck speed, hearing miniscule snippets of noise no masculine ear could recognize. When their fingers started to cramp or they got distracted, the button punching would cease and whatever happened to be playing was deemed acceptable.

The young ladies who perfected this maddening practice produced off- spring, many of them male, who eventually influenced the attitude that necessitated the invention of the remote control. This age of lack of commitment brought about answering machines, which led to pagers and caller ID. Soon people began to screen calls and lie to "B" list friends about why they didn't call back. Email, cell phones, and text messaging followed. These devices allow all of us to always appear available, yet not quite.

Each of us can choose when we want to reply and who we want to reply to. No one discusses commitment any more. The divorce rate is 50%. Kids are raised by surrogates. A three minute song is too long; we want sampling. You can even rent pets.

It seems a little strange for someone who remembers walking five miles through the woods and over the railroad tracks to ask a buddy if he got an answer from the girl you coerced him into talking to about you.

I'm not saying the world is getting worse, just different. I enjoy talking face to face with people I know well. If you'd rather sit in the car and send text messages to your BFF, that's fine.