Texting

I just realized that I'm an avid "texter"... I'm going to challenge myself for the whole of next week not to text and actually start communicating to all people at the very least over the phone... it's getting strange nowadays. We don't talk to people and we don't communicate as much as we used to do even though we currently have the easiest and most accessible means of communication in 2013. 
I have had a few conversations with some of my friends about this modern day phenomenon ... And it has always baffled us. When I was in high school, none of us had cells phones and in grade 12, only me and another guy in our clique had cells, and this was closer to the point of graduation for us. Now, 8-year-olds have cell phones for "safety" purposes, as their parents would claim. While I am grateful with the applications that are on my iPhone that assist me with my serious directionally-challenged-ness, I miss the personal closeness of human connections and actually seeing someone's expressions and not just limiting them to an Emojicon... 
The instance that really got me thinking about this was the time when I was taking the bus and 3 friends about middle school age, were sitting next to each other texting other people. It was as if, they would tell their parents that they were "hanging out", and what that really meant was they were sitting next to each other, texting other people that were not on the bus, and then when they got home, they would text each other about what the other people they were texting said or did?? It just made me feel like they missed out on something. 
I am mostly curious to see what will happen with the digital generation. I am going to really try and just limit my use of technology for the next week... I wonder how productive that will make me....