August 22, 2006
Iraqi text messaging
An example of there being not much cultural difference in use of communications technology, after all?
October 03, 2004
Text messaging in Kabul
Accoring to an article in the FT magazine yesterday (no online version, sorry), young middle class urbanites in Afghanistan are in the grip of an SMS craze, as a way of flirting with each other without it becoming public.
Farzan, a 22-year old engineering student, says he has seen his girlfriend on only a handful of occasions, when they snatched a few minutes together at the shop where he works, but he peppers her with messages."I send messages saying 'I love you; I miss you; I can't live without you.' Sometimes we fight over SMS for 10 minutes or so," he says. "If I have an hour to spare, I'd spend the whole hour sending messages."
Much of the romantic wireless traffic is kitsch picture messages (ready-made, such as a kitten's face surrounded by hearts) and soppy poems. Afghan men also trade ring-tones, jokes and poems on SMS, including Koranic quotations in Arabic script.
