No matter what you may think, texting is having an effect on the way we write and speak. For example, while texting isn’t an accepted form of writing in many academic circles, it’s becoming much more commonplace to hear people refer to text-based communication as if it were speech itself.
Let’s take a look at Michaela Cullington’s essay Does Texting Affect Writing to see how texting affects writing, and how we can understand the implications of this trend on the English language as we know it today let’s start with this link.
Does Texting Affect Writing?
Does texting affect writing essays We at the Hartford Teachers’ Academy believe that the present time, in which we are so deeply entrenched, has spawned a new way of communicating by text rather than in person? This has often led to decreased communication between children and their parents.
What is even more troubling is that this new way of communicating leaves little room for care or concern on the part of parents with regard to what and how much their child shares with them.
In theory, it’s wonderful a quick convenient way for all members of a family to reach each other at any time and from any location.
Concerns About Textspeak
Textspeak is the new language of texting. This modern form of communication has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, but there are some concerns about how it affects writing and reading skills. Some people believe that textspeak does not affect students’ reading or writing skills, but others disagree.
Starting at an early age, children learn to abbreviate words with acronyms like OMG and LOL and use emoticons to convey meaning.
As kids grow up, they become more reliant on these shortcuts and don’t develop the skills necessary for proper spelling and grammar.
These shortcuts can also make it difficult for teachers to decipher what their students are trying to say when they use too many abbreviations or misspellings in their texts.
Writing is not affected by Textspeak, according to Cullington
We have all heard that text speak does not affect writing. In her essay, Does Textspeak Affect Writing?, Michaela Cullington states that textspeak does not affect writing. For example, she says that the use of acronyms such as U for you or 2 for to has no effect on grammar, syntax, or spelling.
She also says that using abbreviations such as u to spell the word you, or replacing a word with its initial letter for a letter sound is a form of shorthand and it’s used in many forms of writing including professional journalistic articles.
Responses To Concerns About Textspeak
A lot of writing in school and at work is done on a computer, so your hands don’t have to leave the keyboard. Almost everyone sends texts to stay in touch with their family and friends, but does texting affect writing Let’s take a closer look.
When you are given a prompt for homework or put on the spot during an assignment, you might feel tempted to grab your phone and start typing out ideas that come to mind without much deliberation.
With text messaging, you can type without having to worry about the punctuation marks or spacing that would be required when writing by hand.
Methods
The study had participants read a passage, and then write about it. Participants were assigned to one of three groups: the first group wrote their essays on a computer, the second group wrote on paper, and the third group used a cell phone to text their essays.
The results showed that people who texted tended to produce texts that were shorter than those who wrote by hand or typed.
The researchers concluded that texting is not good for writing an essay because it disrupts the cognitive processing of information.
Discussion Of Findings
An infographic on does texting affect writing found that students who texted more had a stronger preference for easy words such as but and want than difficult ones, like if or she.
The experiment showed that texting may create feelings of anxiety for many students and could have a negative effect on their written work.
Conclusions and Recommendations
To answer the research question, does texting affect writing a rigorous literature review of more than 40 years of research studies was conducted. These studies were searched using two search words: text and writing. Thirty-nine studies were identified that met our inclusion criteria.
From this body of research, it is evident that students who send texts while in a lesson struggle with listening, focus, and writing performance.
Educators are in need of support tools to help them address this new trend. The best recommendation for teachers is to set firm expectations for their classes about when the use of technology is allowed.
Also, teachers may want to provide one or more strategies such as physical engagement with peers or designated note-taking space to break up the texting into manageable chunks.
References
This study was conducted to find out whether texting affects writing. The participants in the study were given a text-based writing task before and after using their phones for texting.
The results found that texting did not affect writing performance. However, this study only looked at short texts, which are different than longer, more complex written tasks or essays.
It is possible that typing out long strings of text on a keyboard might be more difficult than composing them with your thumbs.
