Mobile phones were the trend of the late 1990’s. I remember being in 5th or 6th grade, and a few of my friends already had a mobile phone. Back then, sending text messages seemed like a new way to communicate, and friends would often send each other messages even if they really had nothing smart to say. A few years later, at the start of the next decade, pretty much everyone was expected to own a mobile phone.
Studies show that a mobile phone is considered to be one of the most important belongings a person can have. Interestingly, nowadays text messages are more popular than voice calls. On average people send 3.6 text messages a day, but only make 2.8 voice calls a day. Among 18-24 year-olds, over half (51%) send or receive at least six text messages a day.
Romance-related activities via text messages are also common. Over half, 57%, of all mobile phone-users aged 18-24 have either sent or received an invitation to a date by text. A bit surprisingly, as much as 20% of the 18-24 year old category have sent or received a text to end a relationship. Sending flirty text-messages is also a common act, and one fourth of all mobile phone users do not consider it a form of cheating.
One obvious aspect of text messages is the frequent use of acronyms and smileys. Acronyms are used to save time, as messages can be written quicker. They also lead to shorter messages, thus saving money, as one does not necessarily have to write multiple messages. Smileys are also used for obvious reasons: in a text message, there is no feedback about the other person’s facial expressions, body language or speaking tone. In other words, smileys are used to give feedback about the person’s mood and feelings. Of course, when used this way, they are also easy to use to “lie” about one’s mood. Furthermore, text messages and smileys are prone to misunderstandings.
Over the years, there has been a lot of talk about the youth’s degrading writing skills. Acronyms, smileys and whatnot are influencing their writing. Best examples can be seen in internet forums. It is common to see people write in a way where they do not care about capital letters, commas, dots and verbs, nor do they take the time to structure their text into paragraphs. This makes for a text that is, if easy to write, ultimately very hard and annoying to read. However, a multitude of studies show that the claim of degrading writing skills is not true at all. To be more specific, text messaging can be claimed to even boost one’s writing skills. It was reported that children, who actively sent text messages, were more comfortable writing any kinds of texts in school.
References
http://www.switched.com/2008/09/23/texting-trumps-talking-on-cell-phones-study-finds/
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/18461.php
http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/gen-y/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051031/1836235.shtml
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