Does Texting Affect Grammar? Absolutely, May 2012 Study Confirms.

RT's take: I am not concerned greatly about this for several reasons. The easiest being, of course: language evolves. Others include the constant existence in most languages of slang, dialects, poetry, creative abbreviations, and the various purposes and reasons they arise. The purpose of texting - quick, essential messages - is also served by abbreviated communication, though I do not personally do that.

I have worked at a university for 10 years and been a student as well for the past 4. I have known many young people who are intelligent, well-spoken, who write well, and do not demand to feel "special". Most are not entitled, lazy, or treasure their "participation" trophies from little league. That's to say nothing about the 24/7, life-long access to instantaneous information with which anyone at any point in life can use to improve their education or repair their grammar should the need arise.


One blogger's take:"While texting has caused consternation among educators and parents since the 1990s for distracted writing as well as driving, changing communication technology historically has changed the way people speak and write over time. That journalistic standard, the inverted pyramid structure (write the most important thing first, the second most important thing second, and so on) developed in the telegraph era, when reporters' stories often were cut off mid-transition. Similarly, the need to respond quickly and briefly in text messages—and the outright character limit in social media like Twitter—puts pressure on students to cut out any unnecessary sounds. In fact, some studies have found students who text frequently are better at spelling and identifying homophones, as they have to, to turn "great" into "gr8."

Furthermore, contrary to Mr. Cingel's experience with his nieces, many people can understand words spelled phonetically or in even more mixed-up ways, and teenagers can view tech-speak both as a shortcut and a means of expressing identity—particularly if it's a little hard for parents to make out."

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/07/duz_txting_hurt_yr_kidz_gramr_.html

Original Research Publication: (abstract) The perpetual use of mobile devices by adolescents has fueled a culture of text messaging, with abbreviations and grammatical shortcuts, thus raising the following question in the minds of parents and teachers: Does increased use of text messaging engender greater reliance on such ‘textual adaptations’ to the point of altering one’s sense of written grammar? A survey (N = 228) was conducted to test the association between text message usage of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students and their scores on an offline, age-appropriate grammar assessment test. Results show broad support for a general negative relationship between the use of techspeak in text messages and scores on a grammar assessment, with implications for Social Cognitive Theory and Low-Road/High-Road Theory of Transfer of Learning. These results indicate that adolescents may learn through observation in communication technologies, and that these learned adaptations may be transferred to standard English through Low-Road transfer of learning. Further mediation analyses suggest that not all forms of textual adaptation are related to grammar assessment score in the same way. ‘Word adaptations’ were found to be negatively related to grammar scores, while ‘structural adaptations’ were found to be non-significant.

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/10/1461444812442927