Does Texting Affect Writing

As technology advances, the preference for what is quicker and easier grows. People are so busy, and caught up in life that sitting down, and writing a long, formal document is not as simple as it should be. In today’s time, we use text messaging to get quick messages to the people they need to be. Due to the excessive use of this technology and the textspeak dialect that we create with it, researchers say our writing skills are weakening. Marywood University student Michaela Cullington, shared her view on how texting affects writing in her essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?” She explains how other researchers, and teachers, see the effect of texting in writing, she also explains how she did her own research and found that using textspeak …show more content…
There are many researchers, and teachers especially, who are expressing their concern about the lack of writing skills of high school and college students in today’s technological era. The sources express how the see the most problems in the areas of spelling, punctuation, and emotion, Students become so familiar with using textspeak that it is second nature. The teachers are having to take extra class time to explain that “it is not acceptable to use text slang and abbreviations in writing” (363). They also say that students are forgetting how to use the simple things like commas and capital letters when writing because of the fact that these grammatical necessities are not typically used when texting. In texting emotions are not conveyed through words, but through emoticons. The problem with this is that “… some teachers worry, they may lose ability to do so in writing” (souce). Although these complains are logical, there teachers failed to research different variables. The automatically assumed that the students were struggling with grammar because of texting. It could be that they do not have a full understanding of where commas should be placed. In a more broad range, the teachers made the assumption that all the students use text messaging. There is most likely a large variance in how many students use texting, how often, and how much they use textspeak. When these assumptions are …show more content…
She talked to teachers, students, and thoroughly observed her results. The students that she interviews about the topic were very different from each other, giving the results a very wide range of opinions. This method works better than the original researches because they only went from one point of view – the teachers. The asked the students’ basic questions about their history with texting and use of abbreviations and textspeak. Also, she asked some teachers similar questions about themselves, in addition to how they think testspeak affects writing for the students. When she got the answers back she was “surprised at how different the students’ replies and opinions were from the teachers,” (367). She then decided to do her own research and study some sample writing for herself. When doing this she came to find that texting has minimal effect on student writing. Students do realize the difference between writing a formal essay and text messaging. In the sample writings that she read, she found no examples of textspeak. When texting, the point is to get a quick message across, unlike a formal essay which takes a lot more time and effort. If one starts putting that much time and effort into a text message, it defeats the purpose. Students know the differences and if there ever is a small mistake in an essay, it is just that: a mistake. Cullington’s research also proved that teenagers rarely use abbreviations.