Instant messaging and chat rooms have basically created a level playing field for deaf people.
Text messaging is just the most recent focus of people's anxiety; what people are really worried about is a new generation gaining control of what they see as their language.
Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized.
Typing and read receipts make a lot of sense for messaging. You write a letter, you put it in an envelope, you send it to a friend, and you want to know when they get it. It's like FedEx - they let you know when the package gets dropped off.
I was dating this guy and we would spend all day text messaging each other. And he thought that he could tell that he liked me more because he actually spelt the word 'YOU' and I just put the letter 'U'.
I have lots of brothers and sisters, two of whom are younger than myself, so I rely on my phone, text messaging or e-mailing to stay in the loop and communicate when I'm away for big chunks of time.
People just don't sit down and just watch TV at night. Between cellphones, television, video games, the Internet and instant messaging, people are just spending their time in different places.
I don't take part in texting and those other things myself, so I don't really know if people put as much thought into messaging as they used to into writing letters.
Sometimes I think opposable thumbs were invented so teenage girls could use text messaging.
At WhatsApp, our engineers spend all their time fixing bugs, adding new features and ironing out all the little intricacies in our task of bringing rich, affordable, reliable messaging to every phone in the world. That's our product, and that's our passion. Your data isn't even in the picture. We are simply not interested in any of it.