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Text messaging affects teen literacy and language abilities
Does Texting Affect Writing
Pros and cons of texting
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The benefits and drawbacks of texting have been debated about since texting began. It all comes down to one question: Is texting good or bad? The article “I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language” by John Humphrys, explains why he dislikes texting. Another British linguist named David Crystal wrote the article “2b or not 2b” about the pros of texting. Joining his side is linguist John McWhorter in his Ted Talk he gave in 2013. They each have their own ideas about texting leading to poor grammar, changing the language, and the overuse of the use abbreviations . One popular belief about texting is that it leads to poor grammar. Humphrys claims that this is true. “(Texting is) destroying (the English language): pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; [ravaging] our vocabulary.” (p.7, lines 55-57) On the other hand, Crystal believes that texting helps a child’s grammar. “The most important finding is that texting does not erode children’s ability to read and write. On the contrary, literacy …show more content…
Humphrys again agrees with this claim as he states: “....(Texting), Instead of aiding communication it can be a barrier”(p.9, lines 109-110). On the other side,both Crystal and McWhorter have something to say about this. “Abbreviations were used as a natural, intuitive response to a technological problem” (p. 21, line 172) explains David Crystal. We use abbreviations as a quick response. Because technology is so fast, we mimic the speed by creating short and sweet responses to answer the other person that we are texting. John McWhorter claims that “texting is fingered speech…(and) when we speak casually, we tend to speak in work packets of 7-10 words” (John McWhorter TED Talk 2013). So abbreviating words help to make the text messages like an everyday conversation and to understand what the other the other person is trying to
In the article, “Does Im Make U dum”, the author states how instant messaging has made us become “dum”. The issue of using popular texting abbreviations like, “lol”, “brb”, or “gtg” can either be an effective or unproductive way of expression. Using abbreviations through texting are so commonly used by children, teenagers, and adults. Statistics show that children are younger than ever for when they are first exposed to mobile phones and text messaging. A 2005 ChildWise study that one-in-four children under the age of eight had a mobile phone.
Michaela Cullington, a student, wrote a paper “Does Texting Affect Writing?” in 2010 for an English class. The paper is an examination of texting and the belief that it negative effective student’s writing. Cullington goes into detail about textspeak- “language created by these abbreviations”- and their use in formal writings. She organizes the paper in a way that is confusing to understand at first (pg. 1). At the end of the paper, she discusses her finding in her own research which comes to show that texting does not affect writing. But this is contradicting to the information she received from the teachers. The students and the teachers were seeing differences in the use of textspeak in formal writing. Cullington has good support for her
Numerous studies have shown how texting can actually improve our literacy skills. In the article “2b or Not 2b” by David Crystal, he believes that is a new form of communication and will not harm our language in any way. He states that a study has proven people who use a lot of abbreviations in their text messages tend to score higher on reading and vocabulary test. According to David Crystal, to be able to write well the first thing you have to know is how letters relate to sounds throughout each language.
The author notes that technology would affect the way people use their language in a matter of using abbreviations when texting. He also noted that messaging causes poor spelling and laziness when typing simple words on the phone. Teenagers have been creating abbreviated words since texting became popular; but abbreviated words have been around way before mobile phones were released. Crystal states, “people have been initializing common phrases for ages” (902), and
...emic world you’re going to take with you in the real world and if learning these bad/ uneducated habits is what you learn in school then that translates into your work/personal life. Slowly but surely, you’ll end up wishing you had never ever used improper English in school. As John Humphrys stresses, “Now I find myself slipping into sloppy habits, abandoning capitol letters and using row of dots” (Humphrys, 75). What Humphrys is trying to get across is texting in these short abbreviated words it made him slip into the bad habit of not caring about the simplest of things in a sentence such as capital letters or even completed it since the row of dots is equivalent to that.
Text messaging is a technology that contributes to the great decline of the English language. The English language is often butchered through the use of text messaging. In Orwell’s essay, he states “An effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form” (446). Main stream society is too lazy to correct any grammar and punctuation in a text message, leading to the assumption that it is not important, after all it is only a text message. Thus, this shows the English language is in decline, when society is to lazy to take a few extra second to correct spelling and punctuation errors . One would not be able to write the same way in an academic essay as they would in a text message. If one would do so, that student would receive an F. No English teacher, or for that matter any teacher, would be thrilled nor impressed reading an essay filled with these common texting erors.
Although her study supports the hypothesis that texting plus writing have no relationship to one another, Cullington recognizes the importance of new technology and society’s evolving methods of communication. She writes, “The use of text messaging as a common means of communication is becoming increasingly popular; therefore, this issue should continue to be examined.” Cullington may not have anticipated the ways in which texting itself has changed. One of the differences between now and two years ago are the abbreviations plus the use of acronyms. However, what has made the device so distinctive is that texting has actually gotten “smarter.” People with smartphones have the assistance of spellcheck, reference “apps,” autocorrect, autocompletion and, voice-control capability. Also know as Siri the response voice of the iPhone’s voice-control system. In the past, text messages were ultimately just instant, electronic versions of a brief
British linguist and author David Crystal once said, "Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster." It is believed that texting has a negative impact on the way people write today, but Crystal counters that statement. Is he right? Or does the continuous use of communication through texting affect people's formal writing?
Before watching John McWhorter’s Ted Talk I didn’t really think much about texting language, other than the fact that I use it in my everyday life and can’t remember a time when texting did not exist. My feelings about text messaging reflect both my age and social background. Each one
“Our generation doesn't ring the doorbell. They text or call to say they're outside,” this line is from one of the well-known social networks, Tweeter, which shows how the way of communication has change in this modern life. According to 2013 statistics by Business Insider, in United States alone, smartphone owners aged 18 to 24 send 2,022 texts per month on average — 67 texts on a daily basis — and receive another 1,831 texts (Cocotas). Nowadays, technology such as text messaging has practically replaced traditional face to face communication among the society primarily in young generations because texting allows messages to be sent fast and effortless. In order to quickly type what they are trying to say in text messaging, people are frequently using textspeak; the language created by using abbreviation rather than complete words. Based on this phenomenon, David Crystal, an honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales has published an article entitled ‘2b or not 2b?’ in the Guardian on July 5, 2008 comes out with the research and studies that state texting can actually improve the literacy of children and create creativity of writing. However, by observing more critically, texting do decrease a person’s ability to switch between textspeak and the normal rules of grammar and adversely affect formal writing and conversational skills.
It's taking over our lives. We can do it almost anywhere. What is it? It's texting! Texting is a reliable, easy and convenient form of communication that is most commonly used by, but not limited to millenials and those in the workforce. Many people use it as a way to express themselves as well. In Michaela Cullington’s article, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she targets two different attitudes in relation to texting. Cullington explains that there is often an assumption that students who use abbreviations when they text, will bring those same abbreviations over to their formal writing pieces. Cullington then adds that the other attitude in relation to writing skills and texting insists that texting is harming student’s writing capabilities. Because of her research as well as experiments done by other colleagues of hers, it shows that
Text messaging has become a norm in our generation, as technology rapidly advances and gives way to more efficient forms of communication in a fast-paced world; and many are skeptical about the influence this new form of interaction is having on our society, especially with our younger generation. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales, writes “2b or Not 2b?” in support of text messaging. He insists, despite those who underestimate or negate the beneficial influence text messaging has on language proficiency, that “there is increasing evidence that [texting] helps rather than hinders literacy” and that the fairly recent form of communication has actually been around for a while and “is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adopt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In contrast, Jeffery Kluger argues in “We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging” that text messaging is rapidly becoming a substitute for more genuine forms of communication and is resulting in difficulty among young peoples of our generation to hold a face-to-face conversation, engage in significant nonverbal expression, and ultimately build effective relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Both writers’ present valid arguments, however, my personal experience with text messaging has led me to agree more with Crystal’s view on the matter. Text messaging is indeed having a positive effect on society by making frequent texters primarily aware of the need to be understood, as well as offering betterment of spelling and writing through practice, and reinventing and expanding on a bygone dimension of our language through the use of rebuses and abbreviations.
Using abbreviations helps users to save time too. When a person is really busy or in hurry, instead of using full sentences, they would probably short abbreviations because they are very comfortable and useful. Abbreviation is messing up our cognition or "process of thought". Without actual seeing the full word spelled out or knowing the meaning of the abbreviated, a user may not be sure what the other person actually means (Dibapile). This indistinctness activates the imagination, stirs up fantasies, and enhances the tendency to project a person’s expectations, wishes, and anxieties of a connection between people.
The use inventive spelling, abbreviations. As high school students start to use short texting, some of their grades dropped due to the spelling errors they make. So many teens get used to wing abbreviating that they just begin to write that that way. Some teenagers writing skills have turned into sentence fragments, because of the limited space they put into text sentence. In my research how does texting affect teen literacy the percentage was 64 percent of students who say they incorporated text language in their writing, 25 percent said they did so to convey have used text shortcuts a lot of students, vocabulary and grammar is also affecting their literacy. The outlook of the teachers is that. Text plus recently released results of its own survey of 1,214 teens that use their services. 43 percent of which have texted in class, they seem to pay more attention to their phone than what the teacher is teaching. They seem to have the phones that will spell the word for them so they have to worry about spelling. In the age of text message, where words are reduce to no stand abbreviating, symbols, But in my research I pointed out that technology has put new emphasis on reading and
Step onto any college campus and take a look around. You will find clumps of students standing around in circles, phones in hand, typing away. What is it they are doing? Texting. Ever since the first text message was sent in 1993, the use of text messaging as a means of communication has spread like wild fire, especially amongst the adolescent generation. And with this new form of communication a new language has appeared; text-speak, the shortening of common words into abbreviations and acronyms (Drouin 49). While texting and the text-speak language seem to have been welcomed by many, what affect is this new technology having on the way we communicate? Is it possible that texting is negatively affecting our ability to use formal written communication, or is this idea just a myth perpetuated by negative media attention? And what changes has texting brought to the way we communicate person-to person? Are these changes positive, negative, or perhaps a mixture of both?