TechSpeak

Laptops, computers, tablets, IPhones, IPads, IPods, and smart phones are just a few examples of the devices that have caused the world to be swept up in a technology craze. Because of accessibility of these devices means that children are gaining access to them at a younger age. According to James H. Burnett II, a writer at the Boston Globe “The typical American gets a first cellphone at about 12 or 13 —that’s down from 16 in 2004. In 2004, 45 percent of people between ages 12 and 17 had cellphones. By 2010, it was 75 percent” (1). Flowtown conducted a survey of teen cellphone owners in 2010 and found that, after texting, 12-to-17-year-olds used their phones most for calls, social networking on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and e-mail, in that order.” (Burnett 2). Because students are accessing technology at a younger age a concern arises as to how the technology is affecting them, particularly in their education. One of the biggest affect technology has had comes in the form of techspeak. Techspeak which is the language used in various texting and social media sites, has a negative impact on students' ability to employ writing conventions.

The term techspeak was coined to explain the jargon or slang used by people who frequently text or use social media sites. Techspeak consists of grammatical shortcuts and adaptations in texting or on social media sites such as not using capitalization or not using punctuation. This is often used in text messaging to save time, and on the popular Twitter site to save characters because the author is only allowed 140 characters per tweet (a members status update). Adaptations include multiple types of abbreviations. The first is initialism where the writer uses the letters as acronyms suc...

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...ing asked about technology use with text messaging and social networking sites, student 4 said she does text but does not have any social networking accounts. Student 4’s informal writing, like her formal writing, contains correct conventions: “To start with, when nature is used to teach a lesson it is much easier to understand. In the story ‘How Coyote Stole Fire,’ Coyote wanted to try and help the men and women, by getting the fire for the fire beings. The problem was that he didn’t even ask for it; he just stole it. As a result, his tail was singed” (Student 4, 2). As with capitalization, Student 4 shows she is proficient in using correct conventions in her writing, and she is not influenced by techspeak. Because of the correct use of punctuation in this paragraph, the reader is able to comprehend and understand exactly what the author was trying to portray.