Chemeketa Voices

How fast R U?
^{Chris Young's quest to break the text messaging record}

You know he's different by the way he holds his cell phone.

No casual one-handed grip and no Bluetooth, here. Chris Young stabilizes the top of his phone with his index fingers the remaining six are interlaced behind the phone, his left pinky juts out just enough to create a lip that keeps the phone from sliding out of his hands. It's not a gesture of love, but utility, his hands create the workspace for the tool, a Nokia 6010, or "Old Crusty". His thumbs fly across the small number pad.

He's texting.

"I got my first cell phone back in 2001 and a friend sent me a text message. It said, "Look this is a text message, we don't even need to be on the phone," said Young, 26, and a recent graduate of Chemeketa Community College.

A month after getting the phone, he got his first bill. It totaled more than $300. He'd sent more than 3,000 text messages in his first month; he still averages that many per month six years later.

"I liked it for the same reasons I liked instant messaging, I could carry on 20 different conversations at one time," said Young. "When I get on the phone with my Dad, I can pretty much kiss the next two hours goodbye. With text messaging I can be doing other things."

By 2004, and with all that practice, Young realized he had developed a skill for quick texting. For a time, he even worked in T-Mobile call center where he was able to best the "texting nerds" using his left hand. It stirred up hopes for a dream that had been gestating since childhood.

"I was always the kid who checked out the Guinness Book of World Records from the school library," he said. "I always wanted to be the best at something. I didn't care if it was collecting straws; I wanted to crack a world record."

Fastest text messager seemed like the perfect match, although that sounds more simple than it is.

The first question Young had to answer was: What was the current record?

He turned to an old friend, The Guinness Book. But it offered no answers, the book didn't even have a category for it.

"The thing people don't realize is that (Guinness) only compiles 1,800 records a year and those that get printed get an award of $25,000. Obviously, they're not going to give that out to just anybody," said Young.

Young also learned a lot about how thinly divided the text messaging field can be.

Some text message users are fast because the devices they use have predictive text, or software on their phone that makes educated guesses about the word being spelled and offers to complete the word with the touch of a button.

"That doesn't make you the world's fastest texter, it makes you the owner of the world's fastest phone dictionary," Young said.

There are also competitions in which the contestants know what phrases they need to type before the competition begins. A popular one is: "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

For Young, that still didn't cut it.

"That only makes you the world's biggest tweeker at that particular text message," he said.

Young was looking for something that challenged his ability. He found his answer in the Book of Alternative Records, a sort of clearing house for all the records Guinness decides not to print.

The holder of the fastest texting record typed a previously unknown, 160-character phrase in 92 seconds. Young knew he could shatter it, but it took more two years for the stars to align in his favor.

"It was something so simple. All I really needed was someone who could write down a 160-character phrase and flip it over in front of me," he said.

He got his break during the High-Five Challenge, a quiz show competition sponsored by Chemeketa Community College. The organizer, Denice Heuberger, asked Young to tell the audience something interesting about himself. Young told them he was the world's fastest text messager, he was just looking for a place to prove it.

Heuberger set out to make it happen.

To qualify for the record, Young had to be videotaped from two different angles, have two timers, and provide a certificate of authentication from the college. Drawing on Chemeketa students in the visual communications program to help with the videotaping, the group set May 23 as the date Young would go for the record.

Heuberger flipped over the paper and the stop watches were started. The watches were stopped when Young placed Old Crusty on the table.

"We had it set up to where I would have ten attempts," said Young. "It only took two."

Young easily shattered the time record with his first attempt, but he had misspelled bumblebee "bumbkbee". He missed hitting the "5" button once to cycle from "k" to "l".

He clocked in with a time of 62.3 seconds using a phrase Heuberger pulled from the back of a credit card statement. Young declined the opportunity to try for a better time.

"I sort of wanted to leave the door open, because I would really like to try again and use it as a chance to raise money for a charity," he said.

Young had tried to set up the event with both Nokia (his phone provider) and T-Mobile (his service plan provider), but both declined.

After breaking the record (his entry in the Alternative Book of Records can be found by clicking here), Young became a known entity on the Chemeketa campus.

People would say, "Let me see you text message, send me a text message. Even my professors would ask about it," he said.

He's uncertain how long the record will stand, but he has a guess:

"I think it will stand until I decide to break it. I don't think anyone else would have wanted it bad enough to go through two years of trying," Young said.

In the meantime, he's happy enough to have bragging rights.

"I've got something to lie to the grandkids about. I'm going to tell them how I was so famous and went on a world tour. I'm going to cut the Courier heading off the newspaper and tell 'em it was in the New York Times," he said.

Young lives in Salem with his wife Meghan. He is currently a student at Western Oregon University and a self-employed entertainer. He can be contacted via e-mail at cyoung1@cp.chemeketa.edu.

Updated September 2007 by Marketing and Student Recruitment.