In his blog post, “Will texting change literacy?”, Bailey Hicks talks about both viewpoints on how texting is affecting the way we speak and use language. Although I kind of feel like texting does not personally help me at all in my writing skills or understanding of language, just take a look at my grade in any heavily writing based class I have ever taken. In fact, I fell that texting hinders most peoples abilities to understand a language. Instead of broadening our vocabulary through other means like reading books, we are just using the same vocabulary over and over again. Honestly though, who is going to use the word guffaw (definition: a loud and boisterous laugh) instead of abbreviations like LOL? It is for this reason that I feel like texting is hindering our ability to understand our language and strengthen our vocabulary. Instead of trying to find a word for what we are trying to convey, we just go ahead and make little abbreviations for a small group of words instead of using the single word with the exact meaning we are looking for. This article from ScienceDaily.com talks about a study conducted to see how texting affected ones ability to recognize new words they have never seen before as actual words of the English language. The study found that “Students who reported texting more rejected more words instead of acknowledging them as possible words.” when compared to those who reported texting less. This is because those who reported texting less were able to try and interpret the news words better than those who reported texting more often. Bailey says that he “can see both sides of the argument” but I personally don’t. I feel that if texting were really helping us out in our writing and language skills then we would have a million Shakespeares by now. Sorry for the hot take, gotta keep it interesting somehow. But seriously, wouldn’t that be somewhat true if texting and modern communication really did benefit us? What do you think?
Jerritt Gutierrez's Blog - Writing in a Digital Age 
I like some of your arguments that you pointed out about how texting doe not help to improve writing skills or understanding of language. In the process of language formation, there are so many new words created through texting, and many people would start to use abbreviations to type faster. I personally think that this would affect people’s spelling skills. Especially children nowadays have access to technologies at an early age, I don’t think texting would be more efficient than reading a book. I think the resource that you found to support your point is excellent, “ScienceDaily.com talks about a study conducted to see how texting affected ones ability to recognize new words they have never seen before as actual words of the English language. ” I believe it is essential to learn the actual words first by reading and writing, and texting could still be a great way to communicate with others.
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Texting may not be directly helping our formal writing skills, but I do think it is helping us in other areas/ I feel like texting increases social awareness because you see more dialects through texting. I feel like this might make your brain more active. Also, I feel like texting allows people to be more creative in communication. Can you imagine sending emojis via letter? Thus, I think the benefits of texting outweigh the cons.
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This is such an interesting topic, I’ve always thought that texting wasn’t benefiting my English/writing skills, but I hadn’t thought about how it could be hindering them. It makes complete sense though, as you mentioned about how people turn to abbreviations over words to make it easier, we never really stray from what we know, as there’s no reason to learn a new word I’ll never end up using. It’s easier to stay comfortable than to branch out.
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I agree with many of your points and think that this topic is intriguing to think about. From a personal perspective, I don’t think texting affects how I speak in a major way, but maybe that’s only because we are all so used to this way of speaking. Overall, I would say that while there are definite disadvantages in our vocabulary due to texting slang, there are also benefits that help us communicate in a more efficient manner.
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