Technology has affected communication skills. Text messages are a way of life, but texting is different than writing.
Patricia Moran| Correspondent
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As I sit and grade my classes’ first essays, I realize, once again, that technology has affected our communication skills. Most people today have access to computers and mobile phones. Text messages have become a way of life. People call in sick, conduct group conversations, and even ask people out on dates via text messaging. All of this is done very fast with fingers flying across small keyboards. This shift has definitely affected the way we write. I think we need to understand why texting is different than formal writing.
Our writing space is unlimited; texting is constrained by the number of available characters. This has led to the development of textspeak, where you are supposed to get a message across within the restricted number of characters. Users are forced to abbreviate as a result of the character limit. Also, an entire system of abbreviations (lol, omg, btw, etc.) developed, which ultimately leads to new forms of writing. Texting is a form of casual speakingin written form where no rules are observed. The primary goal of texting is to get the message across. That’s it.
The effort of writing is a conscious one and it converts thoughts into written words. When we write, we should consider formal rules of language and make sure that the style we are using is grammatically correct and easilycan be understood by the reader. When we are writing, we are producing a product that someone else will read and interpret.
I think we can all agree that technology is not going away. When I return these essays, I am going to talk about texting and how that type of casual, abbreviated language does not belong in an academic essay. I hope my conversation will make a difference and their next essays will be better!
Patricia Moran is an adjunct professor at Middlesex County College. She holds a doctorate from Walden University.
