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Text Messaging Stunts Writing Skills

by Terrence O'Brien on May 1, 2007 at 11:37 AM

Text Messaging Stunts Writing Skills

In a recent report, Ireland's Department Of Education expressed concern that text messaging is beating the smarts out of its students' heads. The report, which observed 37,000 students aged 15 and 16, states that, "Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing." The report not only blames texting's shorthand vocabulary for poor spelling, it also hints at a larger problem: that children trained to write at a rapid-fire pace are failing to think analytically about test answers. They instead answer quickly, with little thinking and few words.


Teachers in the U.S. have seen the same pattern. So the question is: Is the English language being flushed down the toilet, or is it naturally evolving? In a New York Times article about kids using IM shorthand in class, Jesse Sheidlower of the Oxford English Dictionary was quoted as saying, "There is no official English language. Language is spread not because anyone dictates any one thing to happen. The decisions are made by the language and the people who use the language." OMG.


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Tags: education, ireland, text messaging, texting, TextMessaging

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