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Effects of Technology on Formal Writing

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By sierrakirstein
Words 805
Pages 4
Sitting in class and needing to tell somebody something whether it be a friend, parent, or loved one something important and not wanting to forget is stressful. Getting up and leaving class to make a phone call isn’t something to do unless absolutely necessary. These days a quick text is sent; while texting is useful, it has over the years become the way of communication for many, especially throughout high school and college years. The problem with having that technology at hand is that, proper formal writing suffers dramatically from having hand held cell phones at people's expense.
So what is formal writing? “Formal writing refers to the kind of academic, graded writing that you would do in a college course” (McCarthy). Things like spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure are included. Taking a look at sending a text message, 160 characters was generally the amount of space given for one text message; which has been expanded over the years and now more words are seen to be allowed. For the purpose of this essay generally speaking, that is approximately 29 words. In comparison with formal writing that would amount to a good sentence or two. Text “slang words” has been invented to lessen the number of characters used in the text message, while still being readable. For example: ‘lol’, meaning laugh out loud; ‘brb’, meaning be right back; ‘ttyl’, meaning talk to you later; ‘u’, instead of you.. There’s many more used, and since texting is commonly used this generation when wanting to communicate, it's seen to creep into students more formal writing and even more so the last couple of years.
While dealing with the 160 character limit, one must not forget about the numerous variety of emojis. Cell phones have these to pick from to enhance the text message. Emojis are like a small image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc.. Some examples are:

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