Texting And Teen Literacy : Understanding And Knowing How Texting Affects Literacy Overall, Particularly With Teenagers

In Michaela Cullington’s essay titled, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” the author tests the ongoing question of how today’s youth handles the effects of texting in the education system. Using successful evidence from both sides of the argument as well as participating in her own experiment, Cullington is able to fully demonstrate how texting does not interfere with today’s students and their abilities to write formally in the classroom.

Ever since smartphones were created, they have changed teenagers’ lives entirely. The article Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? by Jean Twenge, shows the ways the invention of the smartphone has changed recent generations. The article mentions the rise in teen depression and suicide, cyberbullying, and teen safety. It also mentions the decline in our social abilities, dating, and sleep. Smartphones have had both negative and positive affects on teenagers, but the negatives significantly outweigh the positives, which points to the need to put down the smartphones, as the article suggests.

Although her study supports the hypothesis that texting and writing have no relationship to one another, Cullington (and the researchers whose work she analyzed) recognizes the significance of new technology and society’s evolving modes of communication. She writes, “The use of text mes- saging as a common means of communication is becoming increasingly popular; therefore, this issue should continue to be examined” (94). Not surprisingly, the popularity of texting has increased since the time of Cullington’s article and so too has research on its effect on student writ- ing. What Cullington may not have anticipated, however, are the ways in which texting itself has changed. How might innovations such as Internet access, various “apps,” and software advance- ments have changed texting in the mere two years since Michaela Cullington published her article in 2011?

We as a society are evolving with each generation to come. We are getting stronger, faster, and smarter. Just as cell phones are no longer square blocks with numbers on them and TV’s are not in black and white, writing itself has also evolved. Once upon a time many wrote and spoke in a Shakespearean form of language and over the years it has evolved into something we call modern English. In recent years, technology has advanced greatly and cell phones have become one of our primary use of communication. With cell phones came a new form of writing called text messaging. Text messaging is used to send short, concise messages to anyone around the world. Often times text messages involve the use of abbreviations which stand for different things and also involves frequent use of emoji’s as a form of expression. This form of writing is now considered informal writing and is not acceptable in academic settings. In Michaela Cullington’s essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she touches on both sides of whether texting is hindering students writing or if it’s actually having a positive effect. She then makes is clear that she believes most students are educated enough to know when text speak is appropriate and when it’s not so therefore it has no effect on students. Although, I agree with her thesis, she lacks credibility due to her insufficient evidence. In addition, I also believe

Texting has fast become the preferred form of communication for young adults; however, students need to be dissuaded from texting during class because of the result in loss of valuable class time, lack of effective communication skills, and consistent use of improper English leading to a negative impact on students’ learning.

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.

Years of research show that texting is leading to an increase in social awkwardness in teens and children. “Nini Halkett has taught history there for two decades. As her students are increasingly immersed in texting, Halkett also finds them increasingly shy and awkward in person.” (Jennifer Ludden’s article “Teen Texting Soars; Will Social Skills Suffer?” paragraph 14). With a majority of teens feeling more at ease texting each other, this can and will lead to

Throughout “Does Texting Affect Writing?” words such as textspeak, communication, writing, writing abilities, students and teenagers are

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.

Contrary to what many people believe text messaging and “textisms,” the abbreviated spellings of text messages, may not be harming the younger generation in terms of literacy and grammar skills. Recent studies have even found that a in younger children texting and textisms is helping improve spelling and literacy development (Kemp 2014). One of the recurring points made by researchers is that textism does not do much harm to our literacy skills because most people are able to decide the appropriate times to use textisms and when it is a appropriate to use correct grammar, spellings, as well as punctuation and capitalization.

Thesis statement: In this paper, I will discuss how the frequent use of text messaging by teens today negatively affects literacy and I will offer suggestions that parents and teachers can implement and teach in order to raise reading, writing, and vocabulary skills.

With technology becoming big in this lifetime, there are many concerns that texting in adolescence reduces their writing skills. In this paper, two different studies will be composed that will address the research question into some depth. A correlational design will be the first type of study used. Secondly, will be an experimental design study. Both studies will provide information and results on whether or not texting in adolescence reduces writing skills.

The focus of my essay is to talk about how text messaging is affecting literacy in teenagers. In my paper I am going to include some background on text messaging and how in the recent years it has affected the education of many students. I will include statists from various professors who have written books or conducted studies that will support my topic.

This study will examine that whether texting SMS will impact on language and writing skills of the teenagers and their social lives, and other related issues. The evolution of technology over the last decade or so has happened at rapid speed. Not only innovative gadgets have been introduced but also popularizing it with new

Throughout thousands of years of human existence, people have always communicated with one an another in order to exchange thoughts and ideals. People have sought to create better methods of communication and over time, new innovations allow society to do this in more efficient ways. Today, technology has provided better ways for people to talk to one another, whether it is from using the phone, sending emails, and more noticeably, through text messaging. Text messaging has now become the new popular form of communication among teenagers. Texting has a long-lasting influence on people and how they communicate with each other. Some researchers are beginning to believe that this simple form of communication can be harmful to those who use it. There are three articles that confront this topic head-on and offer the reader different perspectives: Archana Srinivas, Megan White, and Hatim A. Omar, authors of the scholarly article “Teens Texting and Consequences: A Brief Review,” Solomon Ali Dansieh, writer of “SMS Texting and Its Potential Impacts on Students’ Written Communication Skills,” and Reid Goldsborough, author of the scholarly journal, “Texting as Social Regress.” These articles take a credible look at texting and discuss the positive and negative effects of texting on society. Texting for the most part has contributed to the world in good and bad ways, by causing an increase in the number of deaths of teen drivers in car accidents, creating simpler ways to communicate