Text Messaging and the Negative Effects on Teens

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The mobile phone, invented in 1979, by Douglas Han is one of many ways that has changed the way our society communicates. With the mobile phone comes a list of features and capabilities such as checking emails, Internet, taking pictures, viewing and recording video, and video calling. Out of all the features that are available with mobile phones, SMS has become the most commonly used feature in popular culture, especially with teenagers.

Short Message Service (SMS) began as just an idea of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) in the mid 1980s; it wasn’t until the early 1990s that phone companies started to visualize the possibilities commercially (Crystal 3-4). On December 3, 1992, before cell phones were designed to output individual letters of the alphabet, Neil Papworth, a 22-year old engineer from Finland sent the first text message from his computers keyboard to his friend Richard Jarvis, who was attending a Christmas party in England, the message simply said “Merry Christmas.” Three years later an SMS commercial service was launched in the United Kingdom (“Text Messaging”), however the start of SMS took off slowly and it wasn’t until about two years later that the number of users started to build up.

It wasn’t long before the development of MMS came along and allowed for more ways one could express them selves through using a mobile phone. Multimedia Messaging Service (or MMS) offered subscribers the ability to send photographs, sound files, video, and graphics, as well as longer text messages (Crystal 6).

(When the rates to send and receive regular text messages rose from 10 cents to 20 cents, and Multimedia Messages stood at 25 cents, subscribers upgraded their messaging plans to unlimited bundles ...

... middle of paper ...

...www.bamaed.ua.edu/edtechcases/Case%20Numbers/text%20messaging%20and%20grammar_Case%2011.pdf.

Silvers, Chelsea. “Text Messaging becomes an Addiction for Some Teens.” Artesian Herald. 18 Apr 2008: 10. Web. 9 Aug 2010 http://msdadmin.scican.net/mhs/mhs_area_artesian%20herald/Artesian%20Herald%20Volumes/20072008/AH%2010/10.pdf.

“Learning a New Language with SMS Messaging.” Text Messaging Centre. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Aug 2010. https://www.tmcsms.com/learning-languages-sms.aspx.

“Texting and Text Messaging.” Articlebase. N.p., 05 Mar 2010. Web. 2 Aug 2010. http://www.articlesbase.com/cell-phones-articles/texting-and-text-messaging-1944543.html/

Vosloo, Steve. "The Effects of Texting on Literacy: Modern scourge or opportunity?." Vosloo. Shuttleworth Foundation, Apr 2009. Web. 6 Aug 2010. http://vosloo.net/wp-content/uploads/pubs/texting_and_literacy_apr09_sv.pdf.

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