Text-Speak Is Harming Teens Writing Skills

Does Texting Affect Writing: A Critical Analysis of the Influence of Text Speak in Student’s Writing

“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.

Recently I read ‘Feed’, by M.T Anderson, a dystopian novel about how advancement in technology is negatively affecting our society and the way we communicate with each other. The author led me to believe that these advancements, such as texting, are causing our language to deteriorate. Further research proves that texting may be improving and many are learning to accept. When the era of the written word dies, will we be left with an illiterate generation with poor grammar? Students are texting constantly. In and out of class, it is becoming a bigger and bigger part of their lives. Some might say that we are creating a less literate generation, but research shows that texting improves student literacy for three reasons. First, texting improves

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

In Michaela Cullington’s essay titled, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” the author tests the ongoing question of how today’s youth handles the effects of texting in the education system. Using successful evidence from both sides of the argument as well as participating in her own experiment, Cullington is able to fully demonstrate how texting does not interfere with today’s students and their abilities to write formally in the classroom.

Thesis statement: In this paper, I will discuss how the frequent use of text messaging by teens today negatively affects literacy and I will offer suggestions that parents and teachers can implement and teach in order to raise reading, writing, and vocabulary skills.

Nicholas Carr in the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” states “I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going--- so far as I can tell--- but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think.” This quote shows us how people are being affected by spending too much time using new technologies such as texting. Texting really does impact the way people think. While students are in school, they tend to write some of their paper in text form. This is because they are so used to using their phones and using the short texting forms that they forget how to actually write. I had this happen to me before. For example, in one of my English classes I had to write a quick one page essay on a book we were assigned to read. I started to write and once I finished I felt like it was pretty good. So, when I went back to proof read it, I realized that half of my paper was in short text form. I could not believe that I had done that. After I corrected all of my mistakes I turned in my paper. I was so glad that I looked over my essay before turning it in. Also, students would rather be on their phones than learning in school. While I am sitting in class, I always see people looking at their phones and not paying attention. Texting in class could cause you to fail and you would have to take the class over

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.

In the article “2b or not 2b”, David Crystal begins with discussing how others such as John Humphry argued that texters are “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years ago. They are destroying it” (335). This is also the common belief of most people. People often argue about the bad points of technology over our language. However, Crystal believes that texting can improve children’s ability to read and write rather than hinder their literacy as many people claim. He also argues that not all texting are done in abbreviated words. Complex messages and institutional messages are often texted in standard form of

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

Michaela Cullington’s essay “Texting and Writing” explores the possible effect of teen texting on formal writing in school. Cullington lists three different hypotheses scholars pose about the cor- relation between the two: those who criticize texting for its negative impact on writing, those who believe texting is actually a beneficial exercise in writing, and those who see no relationship at all. Cullington begins her analysis with the first theory, quoting concerned teachers, citing the shock- ing statistic that “only 25% of high school seniors are ‘proficient’ writers” (90), and adding testi- mony from two of her former teachers. Cullington then explores the second take on texting and writing by providing contrasting testimony from other teachers who believe that texting is a bless- ing to their students’ writing. Cullington retrieves support for these two opposing views from inter- views and previous studies. To explore the theory that texting is irrelevant to formal writing, how- ever, she performs her own research, gathering results from seven students, two teachers, and an analysis of students’ written work. Despite the testimonial evidence against and in support of tex- ting, Cullington’s own results show that texting has “no effect, positive or negative, on [students’] writing as a result of texting” (95).

In the article” Is Texting Killing the English Language?” from TIME, they start the article off with one critic referring to texting as the downfall for the written word. “Penmanship for illiterates,” The article goes not agree with the critic. The article explains that texting is the new kind of talking. In these times there is hardly any hand written correspondence. If you want to reach out to someone you send then an email or the most common is a text. Texting has made reaching out to someone so easy and convenient. If you have a thought, or an idea you grab your phone and send a text message. You usually have a response within seconds. I don’t think that technology is killing the written language; I feel that it is just making it easier to have quick communication with others. I feel that texting is like short hand you are abbreviating words to get your message across quickly. Our society is so rushed and

In recent discussion of, “Does Texting Affects Writing” by Michaela Cullington, one view is that texting has a negative impact on teens and their writing. Cullington shows both sides of what students, teachers, and professors have to say about the issue of texting; yet after research this belief may not prove to be true. Then she writes about personal experience regarding the issue.

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