Texting: The Truths Behind It

Texting has worked its way into our lives just like Facebook. We use texting almost every day to communicate messages, find out where people are, to conduct business, or just plain catching up. It has become way more convenient than e-mailing because you can access texting from your phone which most people carry everywhere. With all of texting’s popularity, there is no doubt that the issue of whether texting is detrimental to academic papers or not would soon be debated. There are a lot of people that think texting can beneficial in academics or in the workplace. There are also a lot of people that think texting is harmful to academics. I personally believe that texting is not harmful to academic papers because quantity leads to quality, students understand the difference between formal and informal writing, and phones have auto-correct so we continuously see the mistakes we have made.

            A lot of people may think that if you write a lot of messages with bad grammar and spelling, it might cause you to continuously write worse. I however, believe in the old saying, “practice makes perfect,” and this also applies to writing in text messages. One of my major beliefs is that if you continuously practice at something, you will undoubtedly get better at it whether its guitar, writing, sports, or anything you do. Professor Filreis says that, “In writing, quantity tends to lead to quality,” and he backs it up with by stating that he has better writers now than he did 10, 15, and 20 years ago (Jezebel). By saying he has had better readers than he had 10, 15, and 20 years ago, he is implying that the new way of communication via text messaging and instant messaging are improving his students writing. Texting has also been shown to aid in the creative process as well. In the article How Weird is Texting, kids had to create poems by using only 160 characters. Author David Crystal says that, “It is the distinctive spellings and symbols which take up our attention, so that we fail to notice the ‘normal’ elements elsewhere. To say that this poem is written in a ‘foreign language’, as many media commentators would, is highly misleading: visually, it is over half the same as in its traditional representation. And grammatically, it is straightforward Standard English, as the glossed version shows” (16). What author Crystal is trying to say is that, just because people are creating a new word doesn’t mean that they are throwing all spelling and grammar out the window. Kids are creating new ways to spell certain words and it’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as they can distinguish between the correct times to use those words. Many people spell things differently not because they are illiterate, but because they want to be different and break the rules of the traditional language. According the author of How Weird is Texting, “When e-mail began, young geeks broke rules of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation with gay abandon and their daring style became fashionable”, which shows that using different words doesn’t mean you are illiterate, it just means you want to try something new(Crystal, 21). 

            Students must understand the correct time and place to use their ‘text messaging’ words and grammar. Many adults think that texting is becoming a problem because kids are using different words and no grammar, however most kids understand the correct times to use formal and informal language. According to the authors of SMS Language and College Writing, “Few texters used the orthographic form in their examination scripts. Most of them used proper English when writing their essays. There was an awareness of not using Texted English when writing for academic purposes such as during examinations” (Shafie, Azida, and Osman 101). The English language has many different components to it such as technical language and language that’s used in the classroom so it’s important to understand the difference between each kind. Andy Carvin, author of Should Schools Teach Text Messaging says that “Australian educators in Victoria are stirring up a bit of storm by teaching SMS text messaging as part of a language arts curriculum. These students, in the Australian equivalent of middle school, practice writing in the short message format that’s common in text messaging, putting together their own glossaries of texting abbreviations. They also compare the language and syntax of text messaging with that of formal, written English” (PBS). This is important because it shows that teachers understand the potential benefits of teaching students to write better by using text messages. Pam Peters, a linguistics professor at Macquarie University argued that “Students SMS abilities don’t necessarily translate to poor writing skills in other contexts,” for example academic or professional papers (PBS). Most people use shortened messages such as those found in a text message because of limited space. You only have a certain number of characters that you can fit into the message so there is an incentive to using a smaller amount of wording. When we see a large piece of paper or a large screen, there is no incentive to reduce wording down like we do in text messages. Professor Pam Peters continues on to say that” And so I don’t think it’s a real fear that students will ever mistake SMS communication on a very limited range of subjects for the real thing” (PBS).

            Phones today are getting better and better with what kind of words they allow and suggestions for misspelled words. This is very helpful because every time you make a mistake, you can immediately see what mistake you made, and fix it. Autocorrect is even in programs such as Microsoft Word where you can enter an abbreviation and every time you enter the abbreviation, auto correct will put that into the paper. Some people may think that auto correct doesn’t help with academic writing but rather allows people to be lazy. A lot of people are probably lazy because of autocorrect, but lazy is not the same as understanding the difference between two things. If we can see a mistake we make right when it happens, it allows us to fix it, and after we fix it enough times it just gets stuck in our heads. According to Donna St. George at the Washington Post, “Some experts say there are downsides, starting with declines in spelling, word choice and writing complexity” which is a common thing for any adult to say about their children’s texting behavior (Washington Post). Although some people may have declines in spelling and word choice, I believe it doesn’t come directly from texting but rather the laziness that comes from the ease of sending a text. Basically people get lazy in their formal writing not because they don’t know the difference or because they are used to it, but because they just want to take shortcuts. You can’t blame texting for that problem. Overall, auto correct helps us see our mistakes and fix them, if not improving our writing altogether.

            Texting is probably going to continuously be debated until the next big form of quick, easy communication comes out. Some professors and teachers are embracing it because they can see how it can be used effectively, and some professors even think students are better writers because of texting. Hopefully more people can start to see how much texting can actually benefit us, or make life easier for us without any side effects. Texting is not harmful to academic writings because quantity leads to quality, people understand the difference between formal and informal writings, and auto correct always helps us keep on focus and can even potentially improve our writing. You could even think of texting as a fun way to get extra writing practice in if you want to think about it that way. Just remember, don’t text and drive.