We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging

Text messaging has become a norm in our generation, as technology rapidly advances and gives way to more efficient forms of communication in a fast-paced world; and many are skeptical about the influence this new form of interaction is having on our society, especially with our younger generation. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales, writes “2b or Not 2b?” in support of text messaging. He insists, despite those who underestimate or negate the beneficial influence text messaging has on language proficiency, that “there is increasing evidence that [texting] helps rather than hinders literacy” and that the fairly recent form of communication has actually been around for a while and “is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adopt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In contrast, Jeffery Kluger argues in “We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging” that text messaging is rapidly becoming a substitute for more genuine forms of communication and is resulting in difficulty among young peoples of our generation to hold a face-to-face conversation, engage in significant nonverbal expression, and ultimately build effective relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Both writers’ present valid arguments, however, my personal experience with text messaging has led me to agree more with Crystal’s view on the matter. Text messaging is indeed having a positive effect on society by making frequent texters primarily aware of the need to be understood, as well as offering betterment of spelling and writing through practice, and reinventing and expanding on a bygone dimension of our language through the use of rebuses and abbreviations.

Crystal ...

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... anxiety driven by psychological noise.

My advice to those who remain skeptical is to view the matter differently and think about the positive that can come from this “new” form of communication, versus the negative. Everything will always have a little of both, so it comes down to perception and how you chose to look at it. If used efficiently, text messaging can spark ingenuity into the minds of messengers and can convey content-heavy messages without all the messy nonverbals lurking around. What if we as a society had banned the printing press when it first arrived because we believed it to be, as Crystal adds, “the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people’s minds”? There will come a time when we will laugh at the ridiculous opposition that met text messaging, as we presently do about telephones and the printing press long ago.