Effect of Texting on Teens

Kate Hafner’s article, “Texting May Be Taking a Toll” claims that texting is an issue to teenagers around the world. As an illustration, Hafner starts the article by identifying that teenagers send a drastic amount of texts in their everyday lives. according to the Nielsen Company, “American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008”(1). This is just one of the examples of many that portrays teenagers around the world send many text messages. Along with teenagers sending many texts a day, hafner also shows in this article that texting is affecting teenager's life in many different ways for example, preventing teenagers' way of becoming independent. Just as professor Turkle presented,

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.

Nevertheless, not all researchers think alike, some of them will probably dispute the contradict claim such as what Dr. Clare Wood; Reader in Developmental Psychology at Coventry University has said in her article, “We were surprised to learn that not only was the association strong, but that textism use was actually driving the development of phonological awareness and reading skill in children. Texting also appears to be a valuable form of contact with written English for many children, which enables them to practice reading and spelling on a daily basis (Plester and Wood).” However,

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

Texting allows us to stay in touch with others in a most efficient way. We type a quick text, hit send, and in a matter of seconds our recipient has our text. Receiving a text is fast, but typing out a clear, concise

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.

The article “Compulsive Texting Takes Toll on Teenager” was published on New York Times, on Oct 5th. This article was written by the author, Roni Caryn Rabin. Mr. Rabin informs us about the effects that compulsive texting has on teens and more specifically the effect it has on academics. However, the author informsus that texting all the time has a very bad negative side effect. Therefore, compulsive texting negatively impacts grades, sleep, and could increase anxiety. Also, many compulsive texters show the same signs as people with addiction or gambling problems. The author also informs us that several studies have been made among students on how texting affects their academic work. This study examines the relations among frequency of compulsive texting and also students academic achievement. Many researchers have cited potential consequences associated with a high frequency of texting and problematic texting behaviors.

Teenagers interact socially with text messaging, that has increased frequency. With more communication, negative effects can now take place. Teens now talk less face-to-face with texting communication (Welton). In 2000, fourteen billion text were sent out monthly. In 2010, 188 billion were being sent out over the United States (Kluger).

Throughout “Does Texting Affect Writing?” words such as textspeak, communication, writing, writing abilities, students and teenagers are

Katie Hafner’s article, “Texting May Be Taking a Toll,” displays that the rising number of texts sent by adolescents day in and day out is starting to take a big toll on them, their lifestyle, and the people around them. To start off, in the first part of the article Hafner expresses that the point of the first section is that with a growing number of young people utilizing texting and using it nonstop texting is causing serious issues such as anxiety, failing grades, distraction in school, sleep issues and many others. The author exclaims in the section that, “The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.”

In the journal “Txt Msg N School Literacy: Does Texting And Knowledge Of Text Abbreviations Adversely Affect Children’s Literary Attainment?” Beverly Plester, Clare Wood, and Victoria Bell focused their attention on if textisms may affect children’s literary skills. They all conducted one study that gave them mixed answers because of factors (some children texted more than others) that may have affected the results. Therefore, they conducted a second study in which children had to translate a Standard English passage into text language and vice versa. This study concluded that the ability of spelling and writing by children is not affected when texting with abbreviations. It stated that children have a great imagination when making up abbreviations

Texting is our number one form of communication. In 2012, Americans sent over 69,000 text messages a second. Since then, the number of monthly text send increased by more than 7,700% over the last decade, making

Text-speak is a language in which modern day American teenagers speak while texting on a cell phone. Some people may think this harms teenagers, when it comes to academics. However, some people believe that teenagers have the ability to distinguish between texting and formal writings. I believe that text-speak is not harming teenagers writing skills negatively, because most students have the ability called, “code-switch” in which they transition between texts, and real life formal writing.

Many people believe that texting has a negative influence on writing. This false idea stems from the bad grammar usage and incorrect spelling youth often use when texting. In order to recognize the benefits of texting, one must

Texting has many effects. When I think of texting many dangerous and unethical behaviors come to mind. We all know texting has a brief history, many people prefer texting to talking on the phone, and texting has its own problems when misuse. When we are texting communication is lost and is in considered of others and mostly affecting people’s health.