Does texting negatively affect your literacy skills?

In the introduction, I mentioned that I carefully pay attention to what I’m putting in my papers so that I’m not adding text lingo to them. I would definitely look like a fool if I had acronyms and misspelled words flooded in say a job application or my resume’. I text my friends with the text lingo so much though that it can be a challenge at times to turn it on and off. Thankfully I have yet to turn in an important paper with my casual text. I think texting at the rate I do has affected my literacy skills in a way, but I’ve always wondered if it was a negative or positive thing.

Most people believe texting has a negative effect on people’s ability to read and write, most likely because of the absurd acronyms that are formed, but research says otherwise. Data suggests that exposure to texts has a positive effect on spelling (Powell, 2011). There may be something in the very nature of texting that helps people with literacy. In order to read and produce texts, one needs a good level of phonological awareness, which is the ability to understand sound structure of a language (Powell, 2011). This really surprised me because I certainly expected research to be the other way around. Maybe all the texting I do helps me somehow after all.

Another interesting thing that researched showed was that exposure to misspelled words affects adults more than it does children. Some researchers suggest the reason for that is because kids haven’t fully developed their spelling skills so it doesn’t affect them as much (Powell, 2011). I have heard that the best time to learn a new language is when you’re young and text messages can definitely be considered its own language; maybe that has some part in it as well.

Research shows that texting actually does have a positive effect on people’s literary skills. Despite the research, over 60% of the adults tested still claimed they felt texting was undermining their written language skills (Powell, 2011). I guess some people will always believe what they want to believe. It’s very similar to the study about texting and driving where a high percentage of people believe that texting and driving is a bad thing, yet still do it anyway. The connection is that it’s hard to break strong habits.

Now that I know that texting does not negatively affect my literacy skills, I can continue to text my friends as much I as I want without worrying about losing my English skills. I sure won’t start turning in papers or applications with a bunch of text abbreviations, but it’s nice to know I’m actually enhancing my skills by doing something I enjoy.

Powell, D. & Dixon, M. (2011) Does sms text messaging help or harm adult’s knowledge of standard spelling? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. Retrieved November 18, 2011, from the EBSCOHost database.