Textpocalypse

Texting is literally taking over the world as we know it. Text messaging also known as texting are brief written messages between mobile phones over cellular networks. These messages are often called SMS (short message service). Now since most texts include images, video, or sounds a new term is called MMS (multimedia message service. People love to text but why? Just this month i've sent over 5392 texts (sorry mom and dad). For many people just like myself texting just makes life easier. You don't have to reply to someone right away like you would if you were on the phone and it requires little effort to pay attention like you would if you were on the phone. It also takes up less of my time giving me a better way to multitask since my life is constatnly full of things I have to do ever since I joined a sorority. I did some research and in 2000 17 billion texts were sent. Since this year that number has almost trippled (omg america)!!
*side note: if you were wondering mobile telephone companies are making over 50 billion dollars just for text messages a year!!!

The use of text messaging is mostly thought of as a usage of teens and college kids but many business professionals use it quite often. It’ purposes has grown significantly in the past 10 years. As companies seek competitive advantages, many employees turn to the new technology of texting. They use SMS for confirming delivery of products or other tasks, instatnt communication between a service provider and client (ex: stock broker and investor), sending alerts (employees signing up for the system and it sends an automatic reminder about business meetings and due dates). In fact, my sorority uses a system like this called chapterspot.com and the members just entered our numbers into the system and then our exect board can set up events and reminder dates and the system will mass text everyone reminding them of chapter meetings and other events on those days (it has saved my butt many times). Several universities and even high schools (including west chester) have implemented a system of texting students and faculty of campus alerts (thank you snow days :)).

The only problem is that the use of text messaging has changed the way that people talk and write, many people believe this will have harmful effects on future generations. In 2006, the New Zealand Education Board approved that students were allowed to use text language in the end of the year exam papers. As you could imagine many parents and teachers got upset because they thought the use of text language for school assignments would hurt the students quality of written communication later on in life. Some studies have shown negative effects of texting but others have shown positive effects. There has yet to be enough research done to prove either side.

Davd Crystal who wrote "Txting: the Gr8 Db8" says most texting is in English-based shorthands and that text messaging has Americanized some of the worlds languages with English (for example lol which means laugh out loud is the same in all 11 languages). He said “They shorten words by using symbols to represent the word, or symbols whose name sounds like a syllable of the word such as in 2day or b4” which are all English words. On the other hand some research done by Michael Rosen found that young adults who use more language based textisms (shortcuts like lol) in daily writing produced worse formal writing than those young adults who used fewer linguistic textisms. However, the exact opposite was true for informal writing. This suggests that perhaps the act of using textisms to shorten communication words leads young adults to produce more informal writing which may then help them to be better "informal" writers. A study by the New York times interviewed over 50 professors and found that the actual use of textisms in students essays was a myth. The article said that “students no the difference between texting and college papers, they aren’t stupid…in fact they’re learning a whole different language, the language of texting and that in itself is amazing". There really is not enough research done on texting to determine whether its causing a decline in the writing of students and ruining language.

So here are the pros and cons of texting

Pros:
• Ordering food (Papa John)
• Texting crimes (anonymously text a crime to your local police station)
• Emergencies for schools
• Snow days for school
• Participate in contests
• Companies send mass texts to users who have signed up when they have promotions
• voting for American idol or America’s Next Best Dance Crew
• scores of sport games
• reservations for restaurants
• mobile monthly billing statements
• banking services (reminders to pay bills)
• and more all through just text messaging
Cons
• Texting while driving (almost as dangerous as drunk driving experts say)
• "Blackberry thumb" aka a strain on the thumb
• Texting can hurt brain development and social development in young children
• Wasting life texting (we spend a whole hour in total texting each day)
• Cheating on tests through texting (yes cheating is a negative lol)
• Text bullying is also a concern (rumors and gossip spread way faster now)

Cya L8r.