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Is Texting Making Us Dumb?

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Submitted By ashmo5224
Words 1848
Pages 8
Ashley Fuell
Marissa Campbell
English 121
May 6, 2014

Is Texting Making Us Dumb?
Almost everyone I know over the age of twelve years old owns a cellphone and uses it to communicate through text message. Add to that the large amount of people who use email and social media, and it’s clear that we depend a lot on technology to communicate with each other. In order to make these methods more efficient and immediate, a form of tech speak has developed and due to frequent, constant use, has begun to creep into the school classrooms. Tech speak is a form of slang that shortens words to make text messaging faster. It also includes emoticons, a way of using punctuation marks to make a picture of a face or whatever the user wants to form. Technology is making us bad spellers with the use of spell checkers and autocorrect. This texting lingo is also damaging our youth’s written language skills because students are finding it increasingly difficult to switch between using tech speak and proper grammar. Further, texting is hindering students’ abilities to focus in class, hurting their grades. Finally, college entrance officers are reporting application essays with tech speak and acronym shortcuts being submitted by prospective students that end up causing the student to be denied entrance to the college.
Tech speak is becoming increasingly more evolved and complex in its own way. Students who use tech speak, or texting lingo, tend to ignore punctuation and capitalization rules, use acronyms to shorten sentences (i.e.: “BRB” means “be right back, and “TTLY” means “talk to you later”), drop consonants and vowels, and sometimes even use numbers in place of where letters should be (i.e.: “C U L8R” means “see you later”).
With the increased usage of technology for writing and communicating, has come a decline in spelling abilities in students and adults. Cell phones have an

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