Is ‘texting’ harming the language?

Although the same language is used, its forms are many according to their own spheres. Texting is a new form in writing that has influenced mostly the young learners. While I had given my students homework, some students of grade six had written ‘u’ in place of ‘you’ and ‘ur’ in place of ‘your’. This result came as an influence of science and technology or the development of internet.
The use of language has changed to short form. Internet is the fastest means of communication. So to convey the message in fast means, the characters in language are reduced while sending. In course of time, some full forms generated like asl for age, sex, location, HAND for have a nice day, LOL for laugh out loud and so on.

Texting is being much popular among the young people especially teenagers. They do texting to send sms and during online chats. Texting is one of the trends in modern communication. Whether texting is harming language can be a matter of debate but there are both pros and cons to it.

Texting primarily affects grammar and spelling as it’s idiosyncratic. R u f9 or u r gr8 do not follow the rules of spelling whereas cal 2morrow dnt cal nw does not follow grammar and punctuation rules. Such use over a long period of time develops into incorrect writing habits. A new study found that who text are more likely to fall short on grammar tests. Other shortcuts include dropping non-essential letters, such as changing the word “would” to “wud.” Texting habit affects their offline language skills that are important to language development and grammar skills.

The texters have problem of switching between techspeak and the normal rules of grammar that results in poor grammar choices in formal writing. There is another school of thought that supports texting and opines that text messaging inspires creativity to play with language. It is a good thing to make language and writing more fun. They believe that texting and instant messaging adds to our culture and language instead of diminishing them.

My view regarding texting is different. We have to make sure they learn correct spelling and grammar as well as develop correct writing skills before engaging in the text lingo. Once they develop these basic skills, then they will be able to differentiate between formal writing and text lingo. I think that a strong English foundation is needed before they could start texting.
Don't we shorten other things in writing? Etc. instead of et cetera, 8th instead of eighth, Dr instead of doctor, e.g., i.e. pm, am, mr, mrs, c., tm, et al., cm…Txting is just taking it a step further to save time. Lots of people are capable of txting/IMing when in hurry then writing formally later.

Ken Subedi