Text Messaging Changing Teens Literacy

Since the technological phenomenon towards the end of the 20th century, text messaging has been widely used by cellphone users, specifically teenagers, in order to get their conversations across easier and quicker in a very convenient way. In the modern technology world, people have become so accustomed to the idea of

Almost a generation of teens have access to a phone with text messages. They spend so much time shorting words, they lose the ability to be literate. Teenagers today are more worried about their phones, in school or out of school, causing them to drop their grades and get them in lots of trouble.

In the article “2b or not 2b”, David Crystal begins with discussing how others such as John Humphry argued that texters are “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years ago. They are destroying it” (335). This is also the common belief of most people. People often argue about the bad points of technology over our language. However, Crystal believes that texting can improve children’s ability to read and write rather than hinder their literacy as many people claim. He also argues that not all texting are done in abbreviated words. Complex messages and institutional messages are often texted in standard form of

According to the authors, Greenwood, Perrin, and Duggan, there is a variety of ways in which americans utilize online networking to seek out information and interact with others. A long time back, individuals did not utilize the PC to finish a task of a class nor did they connect with others through messages or through online networking. In the article, Youth, Education, and Technology by Ryan Leys, he expressed that “The downsides of technology have proven to be prominent over the last decade, in particular with the growing popularity of the smartphone. While technology can be used in schools to further the education of students, it can also be used in ways equally as harmful.” Now, people send text messages or emails as opposed to looking at the other individual in their eyes when talking. Young children utilize acronyms such as “lol,” “wya,” “wyd,” as opposed to spelling it out. According to our authors, “too much hypertext and multimedia content has been linked in some kids to limited attention span, lower comprehension, poor focus, greater risk for depression and diminished long-term memory”(Clinton and Steyer, 2012). Not only has it affected young children, but as well as adults. Researchers have proven how it interrupts with their sleeping schedule, how it causes stress for both men and women, and how it increases

Kate Hafner’s article, “Texting May Be Taking a Toll” claims that texting is an issue to teenagers around the world. As an illustration, Hafner starts the article by identifying that teenagers send a drastic amount of texts in their everyday lives. according to the Nielsen Company, “American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008”(1). This is just one of the examples of many that portrays teenagers around the world send many text messages. Along with teenagers sending many texts a day, hafner also shows in this article that texting is affecting teenager's life in many different ways for example, preventing teenagers' way of becoming independent. Just as professor Turkle presented,

In the article, “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction,” Matt Richtel explains how students’ constant use of media may induce a pattern of distraction and disinclination toward academics. Richtel starts by investigating how parents, teachers, and administrators use technology to pull the attention of students from games and social media to academics. Researchers say when youths use technology and media, their “developing brains can become more easily habituated...to constantly switching tasks — and less able to sustain attention” (2). The intention of using more technology in classrooms is to invoke student interest in academics, prevent distractions, and allow students to concentrate. Richtel moves on to discuss how students blame media

Thirty-five texting questions resulted from discussions in an undergraduate research group that focused on college students’ texting. Questions were designed to include items assessing areas such as texting frequency, recipients of students’ texts, preference for texting versus talking on the phone, texting interfering with school, texting causing relationship conflict, and the content of text messages in terms of emoticon and abbreviation

“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

Cell phones are becoming a modern day necessity, to the point that they are a must have for every teenager and adult.  Human beings are growing increasingly attached to these devices, depending on them more and more for their communication with other people, job duties, and other daily activities that they must accomplish.

When we are texting and responding quickly, we don’t just only do that, we do it in much easier ways. These ways make our brains more confusing and less creative. Some teens write in techspeak, that they often use for shortcuts, such as homophones, initials, and essential letters. You easily can get less and less use to spelling words correctly and your grammar may get worse because of the auto check we now have. It makes us useless to even use it because all it is doing is messing with our brains by making us more and more dumb. Although the auto correct is truly helpful at times, it’s really not though since it’s making us so

In recent discussion of, “Does Texting Affects Writing” by Michaela Cullington, one view is that texting has a negative impact on teens and their writing. Cullington shows both sides of what students, teachers, and professors have to say about the issue of texting; yet after research this belief may not prove to be true. Then she writes about personal experience regarding the issue.

Thesis: While it has been commonly assumed that texting has had a significant negative impact on student’s literacy rates, others argue and support the use of texting as it has imprinted a positive impact depending on the situation.

Texting is a fairly new form of communication that has taken the world by storm. It became popular around 2001, and originally had its limitations, such as the 160-character limit. But now that technology has advanced, texting has followed along and is now a convenient, casual, and a more immediate way of communicating. So naturally, texting has evolved also in terms of the language used within it. We see this mostly in the form of abbreviations and short hand spelled words. Some people argue that texting has ruined the English language. Studies and observations have shown that the benefits of texting and cyber speak are much more broad then expected. Textisms have been shown to increase phonology skills, brain activity, creativity and provide a relatable outlet for students in education.

With mobile phones where the small screen technology is so constraining, texting and tweeting plays a significant role in how we conduct our daily communication. David Crystal wrote an article titled “Texting”, and believes the younger generation is introducing a new phase of texting where words are usually represented with acronyms (241). Crystal called this abbreviated text exchange a “textspeak” (243). Kris Axtman is also a prominent author who wrote an article, “R U Online? The Evolving Lexicon of Wired Teens” (247). His article focuses on teenagers and their dependency on the online technology. Axtman observes that teenagers develop a whole range of abbreviations while exchanging

Furthermore, as communication and writing skills diminish our school performance begins to be affected. The entertainment of mobile devices distracts nearly every student in the classroom whether it is texting, or playing games, or surfing the net. Mobile devices also play a big role in communication by making it possible for students to easily communicate with each other when they should not be. The power to communicate with virtually anyone is a major distraction. Some teens are so attached to their technological devices they sleep with phones on and wake up to answer text messages they get at night. When kids have cell phones in their classrooms they are extremely distracted from what is actually being taught. They are looking down and playing their games or going on social networking sites instead of listening to their teachers. With the constant distraction of technology and teens short attention spans reading and writing skills have suffered significantly and vocabularies are shrinking. This relates to their education and their ability to do well in school. Another problem is that technology provides students with the ability to explore numerous search engines for any problem they come across and copy them word for word. It seems that students don’t spend time thinking; they are simply repeating information instead of learning concepts and ideas. When students do this, they do not actually learn the