Does texting dumb down the English language?

[Mirage]

A friend of mine and I got into a debate the other night about whether or not the act of texting takes away something vital from communication. I feel as though, while it has its uses, as a form of communication, it does take away from a lot of what the English language actually affords us through speaking on the phone or in person. That due to the limitations of character use in texts, vocabulary must be stunted and that its made much more difficult to pick up on social, facial and tonal cues that could enhance communicating if it were done either in person or on the phone.

He believes that I "just don't get it" and I'm being stubborn in refusing to acknowledge change. That texting can convey just as much intimacy and personality as a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting.

I think both of us have valid points, but I wanted to see what others thought.

[SolemnBoy]

wht r u talkin bout u stupid or wat?

[Counselor]

I love texting as a communication medium. I can respond to a conversation when I have time, and the conversation can go on for days without the other party being present. I find it convenient.

[LONDONER]

I absolutely refuse to reply to anyone who sends me a message in text speak, especially if it is written by someone using a keyboard. It's ugly and it's lazy and I feel almost insulted. Maybe it's an age thing. I belong to an older generation.

[Counselor]

I absolutely refuse to reply to anyone who sends me a message in text speak, especially if it is written by someone using a keyboard. It's ugly and it's lazy and I feel almost insulted. Maybe it's an age thing. I belong to an older generation.

There are a good number in my generation that don't appreciate the "c u l8r, wher wil u b?" kind of usage.

[joseph]

i like texting

[Lalo]

Like so many other aspects of society, we tend to view language as stagnant and unchanging. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Texting, just like other changes in communication mediums before it, has both positive and negative influences on communication. On the one hand, it affords us a certain amount of brevity and extremely direct conversation without an auditory disruption. This aspect "fits" with today's lifestyle. It is unfortunately also sadly lacking in its ability to convey emotion, but even that is changing. Picture messaging is becoming more and more popular to fill the void and lessen the amount of emotional translation that takes place with traditional text messaging.

Language has always changed out of necessity for the society around it. Text messaging will change our language. It is a foregone conclusion. I don't consider that a bad thing. It just is. Quite frankly, the English language is idiosyncratic enough already that it shouldn't take itself too seriously. Aside from often illogical sentence structure and god-awful spelling, English is also not as precise as its users would like to make out. For example, some languages have many different words for the word "Love". Original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament have eleven different words which have been translated into the word "Love", and each word has a slightly different meaning! To me, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than using the same word to describe different emotions. (I love ice cream. I love my dog. I love my partner.) So, the English language isn't exactly perfect.

So, "IMO", texting will change our language. But that might just be okay. The evolution of language will hopefully bring us to better ways of communicating, which is, after all, its purpose.

[ChrisD]

I red this thread and I lold cuz srsly who dsn't like txting

Yes, it can have a serious derogatory effect on normal conversational/written English if you text solely using odd acronyms and offensive abbreviations and let it infiltrate your sense of language, but I find it useful for rapid communication of shorter messages.

[TimeSage]

No. It's people who are too lazy to take two seconds to type two more letters that are dumbing down the English language. I always use proper spelling for words (when I can, if I can't spell it and am way off track I just give up) for every text I send. I don't care if it's 200 characters long instead of 20, At least you'll understand me clearly.

And don't get me started on people who talk like that on a computer.

[Geminize]

A friend of mine and I got into a debate... He believes that I "just don't get it" and I'm being stubborn in refusing to acknowledge change. That texting can convey just as much intimacy and personality as a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting.

I think both of us have valid points, but I wanted to see what others thought.

Texting has it's place, and can be very convenient for certain kinds of communication. However, I think your friend is delusional to think that texting compares to face-to-face interaction. So much of communication in person is non-verbal: body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. You can say the same sentence different ways and completely change the meaning. Texting doesn't convey that kind of subtlety.

What bothers me most is when people are annoyed if I don't respond immediately to their text message. My phone is not attached to me, and I sometimes go hours without checking it. I'm under no obligation to interrupt what I'm doing at any moment to acknowledge a text.

I don't mind the texting shorthand. My bf and I try to come up with new text-based images to end our messages. With a little imagination, they can get quite suggestive ;-)