Texting College Students

“How young is too young for cellphones in school?” by Donna St. George says there was “near-silence at lunch when [a] middle school allowed phones for a week.” These middle-schoolers were so absorbed in their phones they did not have a normal conversation. If teens are so obsessed with their social media life that they cannot function normally when given a phone, they will not make conversation and will have weaker relationships. Teens are literally withdrawing themselves from normal social life to become “social” online. As stated in “Is Technology Killing our Friendships” by Lauren Tarshis, “1 in 4 teens are online almost constantly.” This “1 in 4” could be doing things in real life, rather than staying online nearly endlessly. Therefore, youth is more into their social media than actual

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,

Authors such as David Crystal along with language teachers like Shirley Holm supply Cullington with valuable experiences and opinions on why texting benefits young adults. Cullington picked up that texting allows students to have a “comfortable form of communication” (365) which aids them in their growth in the English subject. After the author gathered a great number of sources and opinions from either side, she then decided to conduct her own experiment to which she got her own results.

“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

Using texting as a quicker and more efficient form of communication takes the emotional connection out of the equation. It allows us to not be physically near the recipient or to take responsibility for miscommunications that lead to hurt feelings. While texting, students do not need to make eye contact with their recipient or learn to read their body language. In addition, there is no need to learn the art of persuasive argument or exchanging and building on ideas. This is not only harming students in the classroom, but can have negative effects when entering the workforce. After leaving college, students hope to land a job in their field of expertise. In the workforce, teams are a diverse collection of persons – all ages and different cultures. Texting may be acceptable in some situations, but there is still a great need for face to face interactions. We learn how to become more comfortable meeting new people and interviewing for jobs. There is nothing wrong the light banter between friends that texting can provide, but the conversation is not necessarily deep.

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

Texting Cullington’s introduction is well-written the way she is describing when and where texting is coming in handy. This captures the reader’s attention and the eager in reading more to find out what Cullington is talking about. The essay contains information on the different perspective of texting. Cullington did not agree or disagree directly but used research of her own and discussed what her finding was. “My research suggests that texting actually has a minimal effect on student writing” (367).

As the AVID Weekly article states, “ Do: Send messages in front of family or friends, provided they are quick and/or important... Half of all people will get their phones if it’s important, though: 52 percent have pulled out their phone in a recent social situation to ‘catch up on tasks (they) need to accomplish.’” This indicates that when students stay connected, they can catch up on things they’ve missed. Staying connected can easily help others learn about the world around them and what they’ve missed out on. “These platforms help people stay connected like never before… ‘There’s definitely a positive impact.

“There was a clear trend for those who used these technologies to receive for social support”, “Social Media As Community, Keith Hampton”. There are some students out there that don’t like to express their feelings face to face, so sometimes it is easier for them to do it over text. If we didn’t have access to technology then students wouldn’t be able to express their feelings the way they like, so the students may be moody and not want to do fun things. Hampton also states in “Social Media As Community” “The data backs it up. There is little evidence that social media is responsible for a tend of isolation, or a loss of intimacy and social support”. The internet isn’t the only thing that can isolate or make students have loss of social support, other things

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

The ability to communicate quickly and efficiently allows for the transmission of important data instantaneously. One such example of this is emergency text messages that can be provided to individuals for natural disasters. Should a natural disaster be about to affect an area such as a tornado, sever storm, flood, etc., people that live in that area can have emergency texts sent to their phones to warn them about the impending danger. This can literally save the lives of those who would have been otherwise caught unaware of the potential danger that they were in. Additionally, text messaging allows for people to maintain personal relationships with those that they do not have the ability to see on a regular basis. As a study showed, the average teenager uses the text message for about 54% of their interactions with their friends. Face-to-face talking was actually the third most used method of communication, weighing in at 33%. The ability of instant, efficient communication that the text message provides can help people maintain a relationship with a friend when the two literally live on opposite sides of the country (Minshall, 2012).

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.

Many will argue that children and teens especially will not know when to use “textisms,” and that texting is only a distraction to learning. That they cannot differentiate between the important messages where formality is key, and the times where they are not being judged or critiqued on every spelling and grammar mistake. This is a common misconception, as a 2006 study by two professors at Coventry University in Britain found that teen students seem to switch easily between text messaging and Standard English. This is most likely because that generation was not introduced to texting speak while they were learning the English language taught in pre school and elementary school. Although

The main cause of the texting craze is the ability to send and receive quick messages. It is simpler than making a phone call and getting caught up in a conversion when your time is limited. It also allows you to share and respond instantly so there is a sense of always being connected to peers. Texting has become more popular than talking on the phone or even face to face. So much so that “texting has become the way that adolescents forge social bonds, and texting between adolescents often serves to promote social cohesion in peer groups”

The “Effects of Text Messaging on College Students’ Perceptions of Personal Health” article just like the two articles all seem to say that texting can have a negative effect on students. “Even though most college students agree that face-to-face communication is more helpful than a text message, college students’ behaviors still favor text messaging.” (Massimini &