Effects of Texting on Teen’s Literacy
"I have realized [students] very often write the way they speak and they speak the way they text. And yes, I have had a few students turn in papers with numbers instead of words … It is definitely the texting influence," Dorlea Rikard, a Florence High School language teacher, said (Singleton-Rickman para 7). Some students do not pay any attention to the English language, making entire papers of just run-on sentences. Bad grammar is not just in high school; one girl refused to capitalize an ‘I’ because “she thought it was funny” (Martin 2). Most teens use a thing called cyber slang. Cyber slang is a term used for when someone makes a word shorter or uses abbreviations to convey thoughts on any electronic devices. Children use abbreviations such as LOL or BFF to text quicker throughout the day so they can send more texts and text more people. Since teens get so used to texting it can affect their testing scores so that when they have to write essays and do paper …show more content…
"They slip into the informal voice often, and that is really a tightrope because you want them to find their own voice, but the writing must be appropriate," Dorlea Rikard said (Singleton-Rickman para 7). One of the most commonly missed items in the texting language is punctuation. Since teens have never texted with punctuation, they tend to forget where all of the commas and periods should go (Mittal 1). English teacher Carrie Beth Buchanan said “Many high school students have become dependent on electronic spell-checkers. As a result, I spend a significant amount of time circling misspelled words on assignments” (Sutton para 2; Parson para 3). Before there was texting everyone was taught the difference between basic words such as ‘can’ and ‘may’ or ‘lay’ and ‘lie’, but when teens are texting, as long as it makes sense they can type it (Parson para
"I have realized [students] very often write the way they speak and they speak the way they text. And yes, I have had a few students turn in papers with numbers instead of words … It is definitely the texting influence," Dorlea Rikard, a Florence High School language teacher, said (Singleton-Rickman para 7). Some students do not pay any attention to the English language, making entire papers of just run-on sentences. Bad grammar is not just in high school; one girl refused to capitalize an ‘I’ because “she thought it was funny” (Martin 2). Most teens use a thing called cyber slang. Cyber slang is a term used for when someone makes a word shorter or uses abbreviations to convey thoughts on any electronic devices. Children use abbreviations such as LOL or BFF to text quicker throughout the day so they can send more texts and text more people. Since teens get so used to texting it can affect their testing scores so that when they have to write essays and do paper …show more content…
"They slip into the informal voice often, and that is really a tightrope because you want them to find their own voice, but the writing must be appropriate," Dorlea Rikard said (Singleton-Rickman para 7). One of the most commonly missed items in the texting language is punctuation. Since teens have never texted with punctuation, they tend to forget where all of the commas and periods should go (Mittal 1). English teacher Carrie Beth Buchanan said “Many high school students have become dependent on electronic spell-checkers. As a result, I spend a significant amount of time circling misspelled words on assignments” (Sutton para 2; Parson para 3). Before there was texting everyone was taught the difference between basic words such as ‘can’ and ‘may’ or ‘lay’ and ‘lie’, but when teens are texting, as long as it makes sense they can type it (Parson para