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Is texting ruining the language skills of young people? January 17, 2012

Educators and laymen have all been rather harsh on young people’s texting habits. Many have claimed that addiction to texting is making young people dumb by teaching them to be lazy in their language use. According to new perspectives, though, this fear may be overblown. Some educators have recently claimed that incorporating text-speak into the classroom can teach students to demonstrate language comprehension in different contexts. Academic research tends to support this point. According to one often-cited study out of Canada, teens who report to text frequently use an enormous range of types of new language but their shortcuts have little impact on their ability to correctly spell proper words.

For more, see the following statement from British linguist David Crystal:

Discussion Questions:

1.  What is the popular criticism of texting? From your own experience, is there any truth to this criticism?

2.  Under what conditions might texting be harmful to one’s language skills?

3.  Is the fear of texting really overblown?