Texting and Writing

In the article “Texting and Writing” written by Michaela Cullington, she points out the positives and negatives of Texting. In 2008, only twenty-five percent of high school students were writing at a “proficient” level.  Jaquline Ream blames the writing levels of high school students on texting. She believes that because of texting this teenage generation has grown up with a lack of communication skills. Both Ream and students believe texting has a negative relationship with student abilities with spelling. Instead they are using abbreviations created while texting. For example, teenagers are using gr8 instead of great.  They are also not capitalizing when a letter should be, as well as having a lack of punctuation. Others point out that texting lacks emotion besides when the sideways smiley faces are used. On the other hand, some believe that texting lets teenagers to be creative.  They are able to practice writing by doing something they enjoy. Texting can be the jumpstart to get students to enjoy writing again.  Teenagers’ ability to express their thoughts in as few as words and as concise as possible is something that will help with their writing. David Warlick believes teenagers have developed a new language for the hi-tech world. Teens have the ability to understand one another by using abbreviations, numbers, and symbols. Michaela conducted her own research about how texting impacts writing. She interviewed and got the opinion of seven high school and college students, asking them several questions about their personal experiences.  She also asked for some teachers opinions to see if they see this problem in their students writing. The research determined that texting does not impact their writing in a negative way because students know that textspeak is not meant to be used in formal writing. Many students do not use abbreviations in their text messages and some find it easier to spell everything out.  This article shows the pros and cons on the impact of texting on writing. Michaela researched the topic as well as conducting her own research by asking both students and teachers. She asked both because it is important to get the opinion from both sides.

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