Does Texting Affect Writing By Michaela Cullington

We as a society are evolving with each generation to come. We are getting stronger, faster, and smarter. Just as cell phones are no longer square blocks with numbers on them and TV’s are not in black and white, writing itself has also evolved. Once upon a time many wrote and spoke in a Shakespearean form of language and over the years it has evolved into something we call modern English. In recent years, technology has advanced greatly and cell phones have become one of our primary use of communication. With cell phones came a new form of writing called text messaging. Text messaging is used to send short, concise messages to anyone around the world. Often times text messages involve the use of abbreviations which stand for different things and also involves frequent use of emoji’s as a form of expression. This form of writing is now considered informal writing and is not acceptable in academic settings. In Michaela Cullington’s essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she touches on both sides of whether texting is hindering students writing or if it’s actually having a positive effect. She then makes is clear that she believes most students are educated enough to know when text speak is appropriate and when it’s not so therefore it has no effect on students. Although, I agree with her thesis, she lacks credibility due to her insufficient evidence. In addition, I also believe

“Does Texting Affect Writing” is about Michaela Cullington, the author, comparing two opposing perspectives. The perspective is whether texting hinders the formal writing skills of students or not. Millennials are a population that cannot go a day without looking at their phones so, due to the “increasing use of mobile phones, concerns have been raised about its influence on their literacy skills. No matter if it is sending or receiving a text or checking social media sites, technology has taken over the lives of the young generations. The essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?” in They Say, I say exposes how the significant action of texting and using textspeak, i.e. abbreviations and symbols, may be hindering the writing skills of teenaged students. People communicate using textese to “more quickly type what they are trying to say” (Cullington, 2017, p. 361). Textese is a “register that allows omission of words and the use or textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever” (Van Dijk, 2016). When these people use textese often, it can become habitual and transition into their school assignments. Michaela Cullington constantly repeats words and uses comparisons and abnormalities for the concerns about textspeak, the responses to the concerns, methods and the discussion of findings on the topic to be analyzed.

Reading the chapter, you can gather the author, Michaela Cullington, approaches the main idea through explaining how many adolescents enjoy texting may improve their writing skills by stating "if they frequently write through texts, they will be more motivated to write formally." Michaela points out that texting may be good for adolescents; however, this must be done correctly. She states that while texting you are trying developing a message with as little words as possible, this helps kids learn to summarize chunks of information. In her own personal research, she noted that texting very minimal effect upon her student's writing, but she found that texting does not hurt a student’s formal language.

In the article “Does texting affect writing” the author Michaela Cullington seeks to find the answer to this controversial question. Cullington researched and performed some experience to help come up with her own conclusion. She interviewed some teachers that believed that there is a conspicuous decline in writing skills. They attribute this to texting or textspeak. For example, some of the teacher interviewed say that when students write it is hard for them to show emotion in their words.

In Veronica Stafford's "Texting and Literacy", she argues that texting has a deeply negative impact on the reading, writing, and communication skills of students. Stafford first claims "... students pass their free time chatting through their cell phones rather than enjoying a great book." (Stafford 1) She then explains that most of the student population uses a cellphone with texting capabilities, and the increase of text communication has seen a fall in reading rates.

After reading Texting and Writing, by Michaela Cullington, I do not agree with many of her viewpoints. Cullington argues that texting does not affect a students writing. Textspeak, the abbreviation and shortening of words like used when writing a text message, does affect the way a student writes because they use the abbreviations, and their writings tend to lack punctuation. When a writer uses excessive abbreviations on a regular basis they can get stuck in the writer’s head causing them to use them in all of their writings. Cullington did make good points of her own opinion on texting and writing in her piece, but I disagree with her and believe that texting and

There has been claims that texting can adversely affect students’ formal writing skills. Michaela Cullington, author of “Does Texting Affect Writing”, responds to these claims by saying that texting does not affect students’ formal writing but helps them improve it. She mentions that texting teaches students’ how to write concisely, students’ know that textspeak is only appropriate when texting and not when writing formally, and that texting allows students’ to have a casual setting to practice their writing which help improve their formal writing. All of Cullington’s arguments are invalid; texting does harm students’ formal writing in multiple ways such as: writing texts “concisely” is not beneficial since students will forget how to expand

Texting is harming the ability for this current generation of children to write in a formal manner. “Digitalk” is what Kristen Hawley Turner of Fordham University calls, text-speak.For example, many teens will text “g2g” in replace of the actual words “got to go”.In my opinion, texting is ruining students’ abilities to write a formal essay,letter,etc.

In the article “Does Texting Affect Writing” Michaela Cullington argues that texting has no longer affected student writing skills. Cullington grew to become fascinated in the subject after hearing high school European instructors complain that the amount of texting lessened students’ ability to spell, structure sentences, and communicate intuition in writing. Many teachers also complained how students left out punctuation in complex writing. However, in spite of the objections with texting, Cullington discovered that other instructors viewed texting as helpful aids to writing due to the fact that texting offers inspiration, or end up more confident in their writing. Given these scenarios, Cullington determined to lookup the controversy herself.

Texting has fast become the preferred form of communication for young adults; however, students need to be dissuaded from texting during class because of the result in loss of valuable class time, lack of effective communication skills, and consistent use of improper English leading to a negative impact on students’ learning.

The Art of Texting: Analyzing Texting and Writing Texting seems to have the concern of many people these days. The one person’s concern that stood out to me was Michaela Cullington author of, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” This article explains how texting can affect a student’s writing. Her beliefs are that texting does not affect the way students write. Many people believe that texting not only has negative affects but they also have positive affects like motivating them to write and also using different writing skills.

People claim that new developments have caused kids to be so dependent on their devices, that they can't think for themselves. This claim can also be turned around by saying that technology has given kids more opportunities and chances to learn, and in particular, more opportunities to write (Source 7, Clive Thompson). An example of this is a study done at Stanford University, where it was discovered that Stanford students did a stunning 38 percent of their writing outside of the classroom (Source 7, Clive Thompson). With the developments of E-mail, texting, and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, younger people are constantly writing in their every day lives. In the past, people would, for the most part, stop writing once the finishes their education. Now however, people are more comfortable, and more used to, writing. And while the argument that technology has decreased level of the vocabulary and vernacular of young people is true in some cases, the increase in writing shown by young people has led to a greater ability to convey information to other people, and a greater comfort in talking to people they don't know (Source 7, Clive Thompson). As Andrea Lunsford says, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek Civilization" (Source 7, Clive

Many will argue that children and teens especially will not know when to use “textisms,” and that texting is only a distraction to learning. That they cannot differentiate between the important messages where formality is key, and the times where they are not being judged or critiqued on every spelling and grammar mistake. This is a common misconception, as a 2006 study by two professors at Coventry University in Britain found that teen students seem to switch easily between text messaging and Standard English. This is most likely because that generation was not introduced to texting speak while they were learning the English language taught in pre school and elementary school. Although

In the 21st century, older generations are worried that the younger generation are becoming less intelligent because of the constant use of technology. In this article, a psychologist cleared up this worry. The psychologist stated in the article that “ Kids who are good spellers [academically] are good spellers in instant messaging, and kids who are poor spellers in English class are poor spellers in instant messaging." The implied conclusion is that texting and writing in school do not relate negatively. This study is a positive correlation however, the coefficient is very low. Children have learned that their texting language and their language at school is completely separate. The are easily able to go back and forth from one to another once they have become accustomed to both of these languages. Students know that there is a difference between correctly writing a paper in school and correctly writing a text. According to the article and the implied conclusion, parents do not need to worry about their children’s texting skills ruining their spelling habits.

There has been a general consensus that the overuse of electronic devices must impair the language ability. However “the research found no negative relationship between formal writing skills and the use of textisms”. Furthermore the study suggests that texting can actually have a positive effect.