Sampson D
ENG 100
17 OCTOBER 2015
The Dangers of Text Messaging Vastly Overstated Most arguments state that text messaging is evil and will destroy language over time because most people use abbreviated words when texting. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales in his article “2b or Not 2b” argued that the dangers of text messaging has been vastly exaggerated. He also believed that text messaging should be seen as something good, a new dimension to language instead of viewing it as detrimental to language. These are some of the arguments he made in favor of text messaging, how the dangers of this phenomenon has been enormously exaggerated and how he organized and supported his arguments, that effects of text messaging on language is insignificant. The dangers of text messaging has been vastly overstated according to Crystal. Some people believe that text messaging is something that will cause language to decline due to abbreviated forms in it. John Humphrys argued that texters are “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years ago” (qtd. in Crystal 335). To Humphrys, “texting is destroying our language: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary and must be stopped” (qtd. in Crystal 335). Also, John Sutherland of University College London wrote in his paper in 2002 that text messaging is “bleak, bald, sad shorthand. It also masks dyslexia, poor spelling and mental laziness. To Sutherland, texting is penmanship for illiterates” (qtd. in Crystal 335). However, according to Crystal, “in one American study, less than 20% of the text messages looked at showed abbreviated forms of any kind--about three per message, and in a Norwegian study, 6% used abbreviations” (338). In his own text collection, only about 10% used abbreviated forms. To Crystal, this shows that text messaging has been vastly exaggerated to be detrimental to our language, and its long term impact is trifling. That is, it is not as disastrous as some people see it.
Crystal, made some arguments in favor of text messaging. To him, text messaging should be seen as something good rather than bad. Texting, according to Crystal, is the only “linguistic phenomenon that has aroused curiosity, suspicion, fear, confusion, antagonism, fascination, excitement and enthusiasm all at once” (336). To Crystal, although many “texters” enjoy breaking linguistics rules, they also know they need to be understood because nobody will pay to send messages if their receivers cannot understand them. Again, he sees text messaging as advantageous because of its relatively unstandardized mode of communication, which is prone to idiosyncrasy because authorizing differences are likely to be more easily detectable than in writing using standard language (340). These examples stated above to Crystal, shows that text messaging is good rather than bad.
Crystal organized his argument by first talking about how some writers think the introduction of text messaging is bad and its negative effects on language as a whole (335). He used data to provide evidence as to why text messaging is not an evil tool to destroy language but rather a new dimension to language. Thus, text messaging is language in evolution. He argued that the use of text messaging is not a new thing, and the use of initial letters for whole words existed long before the arrival of text messaging. To him, “IOU (I Owe You) for example, is known from 1618 and there’s no difference between a modern kid’s “lol” (“laughing out loud”) and an earlier generation’s “Swalk” (“sealed with a loving kiss”)” (339). He also argued that the use of abbreviated words existed long before the arrival of text messaging as Eric Partridge published his dictionary of Abbreviations in 1942 which contained dozens of SMS-looking examples such as agn “again,” mth “month,” and gd “good”- 50 years before text messaging was born (339). Crystal built his claims on these main points. First, only about 10% of words are abbreviated in a typical text message (338). Also, children and adults alike use text language, the latter being more likely to do so. He supported this point by using the example of T-Mobile’s competition for the best romantic poem in SMS. The runner up who was in her late 60s used abbreviated words whilst the winner who was younger did not (341). Again, students do not habitually use abbreviations in their homework and examinations. He backed this point with an argument of a student who wrote an essay full of textspeak that her teacher was unable to understand it. Only an extract was posted online continuously, but no one was able to track down the entire essay which he thinks was probably a hoax (338). Moreover, he went on to make a point that before people can text, they must first know how to spell. Therefore, texting cannot be the cause of bad spelling. Lastly, text messaging improves people’s literacy since texting provides people with the opportunity of engaging with the language through reading and writing. Text messaging is a new dimension to language which will cause no harm to language, and there’s no disaster pending. We will not see a new generation of adults growing up unable to write proper English, and language will not decline. Thus, text messaging is language in evolution.

Work Cited
Crystal, David. “2b or not 2b.” They Say I Say. 2nd Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, Russel Durst. New York. Norton and company, 2012. 335-345. Print.