“text girl” by uberculture is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Since the early days of texting, many people have had an issue with the way that this form of communication supposedly causes poor writing skills in teens. The general idea is that texting habits carry over into a student’s writing abilities, causing them to forget even the most basic grammar rules. Authors David Crystal and Christopher Justice beg to differ.
In his article, “Texting Ruins Literacy Skills”, published in the book Bad Ideas About Writing, Justice covers a lot of the negative attention that texting has gained over the years. He mentions that various news articles have bashed this specific form of communication by pushing the narrative that avid texters are predictable and lazy. According to this point of view, teen texters especially will experience a lapse in grammar, lack of punctuation, and disregard for correct spelling within their school essays. These teens will supposedly have trouble connecting with audiences and getting their points across clearly.
In response, Justice argues that students who text frequently often have better comprehension and summary skills. “Texting improves texters’ summarizing skills and their overall ability to write more concisely along with their diplomacy skills,” he writes. (Justice, 311) He mentions that instead of viewing texting as some flashy new language, it should be seen as a tool to help students “augment their writing.” (Justice, 312) Justice believes that since texting can actually get students to build upon preexisting writing habits, that it should be just as respected as any other form of writing. In addition, he challenges the idea that texters have issues with audience connections. “Texters often already have a sophisticated sense of audience when texting because the medium facilitates frequent communication with vastly different audiences:
spouses, parents, bosses, friends, health professionals, grandparents, colleagues, lovers, and so on,” Justice explans. (Justice, 311) This vast knowledge of audiences would not hinder a writer; rather, it would allow for better delivery, no matter the context.
Also challenging the poor outlook on texting, Crystal writes in his book, Txtng, the Gr8 Db8, that the media coverage on texting and teenagers has turned a few rogue assignments into a full blown catastrophe. “The formal examination reports are not much help,” the author expresses, “for they present an unclear picture, and their conclusions are distorted by media hype.” (Crystal, 153) Articles have been published with headlines such as “Texting Deprives Children of Sleep” and “Texking and Emailing ‘Fog Your Brain Like Cannabis’,” which generate a sort of wariness when it comes to the correlations between texting and language. However, Crystal explains that even though some teens cannot differentiate between ‘texting language’ and proper English, many teens are put off by the idea of using text slang and abbreviations in their academic works. He says that the skills picked up from texting can help students to be more concious of how their writing sounds and actually find errors faster than someone who does not text as frequently.
Instead of the fear driven belief that texting will kill the English language, the two authors seem to agree that texting should be used as another writing medium. Crystal sees texting as its own language, one that has proven useful when it comes to keeping students on a word limit without restricting their creative flow. Texting, according to him, teaches students to make clear statements in different ways. Similarly, Justice believes that texting should be considered “as a complex complement to formal writing that allows people to augment their writing skills in fresh, complex ways.” (Justice, 313) He concludes his article by writing that people should be as open to studying texting methods as they are with writing methods. Both authors come to the conclusion that texting can build on real world writing comprehension and should be taught alongside writing.
“Smartphone” by anykeyh is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Works Cited
- Justice, Christopher. “Texting Ruins Literacy Skills,” in Bad Ideas About Writing. Edited by Cheryl E. Ball & Drew M. Loewe, 308-314
https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas/badideasaboutwriting-book.pdf
- Crystal, David. Txtng, the gr8 db8, 2008.