Eron Tomer Danao X – St.Philip English 10 - Expository Essay March 9 2018
HOW DOES TEXT MESSAGING AFFECT TEEN LITERACY?
INTRODUCTION Literacy has a major impact in a person’s life. Every teens discover their happiness through communicating. A certain text messaging gives a tremendous value for the moral and social development of the child. Growing up in a sociable community made me believe that humans are social creatures by nature, they have a need or requirement to socialize with others. As our generations comes by, every new technology that is introduced into a given society brings with it a collection of socialization. I was once read in an article that teens tend to learn to share, and to communicate through language and actions. But in a wide variety of rate, teens communicate through text messaging. In this simple essay, you will greatly realize the pro’s and con’s of investing of one’s teen in a text messaging socialization.
BODY Is it important to be a literate person in today’s society? The ability to function well depends on whether or not a person is literate and can comprehend what is going on around them. If a person doesn’t have the basic ability to read, they will feel the stress and dependency on others because of their illiteracy. Communication nowadays is very easy. You can easily spot in a crowd a bunch of people holding their phones as they’re eager to send their relatives, friends, and love ones very short messages, using the readout screen on a cell phone or a pager with a tiny keyboard. Texting, due to its simplicity, is very popular. Anyone with a cell phone can do it. It helps users stay communicated with many people through out the day. Teens, millennials, and even kids tend to use their cell phones to reach many people at once with ease and less of a time. Based on an article of ABC News, ‘In Britain, 77 percent of teens own cell phones, but they're texting on them, not talking.’(http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130826&page=1 ; March 7 2018). Now I should ask you who are the originators of this literacy? The answer is most of the teenagers in the modern society. Its a sign that texting can be both bad and good, right and wrong, easy and hard. However, I believe that teenagers are making their own language in the modern society and see no effect on their students' language skills. As the
media once proposed that texting may have a negative effect on a teen’s literacy skill. And perhaps the problem that teens facing right now is the act of being lazy or what we call the ‘procrastination’. Instead of using the right grammar and spellings in sending text messages, teens tend to propose shortened words that are widely used in social medias. One example is asking a friend about today’s assignment or texting a family to hangout, instead of sending correct words like “Could I ask what our homework’s are?” or “Hey Mom, see you to our favourite park!”. They just text them something like “Yo cmate, whats HW? Xoxo” or “Mum, park now!”. See the differences? Its shows a massive TextMessaging Revolution that instead of making the teens learn the proper use of grammar and spelling it actually turn the other way round that give deleterious effects to one’s literacy. According to Paul Edwards, a British telecommunications consultant “Text is really driving it, because the youngsters especially love the idea that they can do something a little bit secret," But I cant just propose that text messaging only gives negative effect on each and every teenagers. As according to the book, ‘Literacy’, of Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo’s ‘Literacy produces existing social relations, or introduces a new set of cultural practices that promote democratic and emancipatory change.’ We cant deny the power and help of text messaging in terms of our school studies. It is used as a teaching tool and not a means of distraction as so many adults perceive them to be. Texting and cell phones are the future of the world of teaching and are the gateway to higher learning. By using the text alerts to notify students of class cancelations and possible on campus threats; keeping the students safe and notified about these possible situations. However, in the majority of studies, children’s use of text messaging and their spelling and literacy abilities were found to be positively related, accuracy of reading texts and speed of reading and writing texts were positively associated with children’s spelling. This vital skill is eventually readily transferred to reading and writing acquisition, and furthers literacy development. So, texting is not necessarily detrimental and, in some cases, actually adds to the literary skills of those children whose innate phonological capabilities are functioning normally. ‘As the availability, affordability, and popularity of mobile phones has increased in the last decade, text messaging has become one of the primary means of communication among adolescent peer groups.’ As one said in a book of Ellen Booraem’s ‘Texting the Underworld.’
CONCLUSION I firmly concluded that the effects of text messaging in one’s literacy are depend on a person’s way of approaching this certain phenomena. Some people gets negative effects from it while some gathered positive comebacks. Even though, the majority of people thought that text messaging would have a negative impact on students’ writing and literacy, however, this essay analysed show a different story. If taken as a whole, these essay seem to indicate the opposite of the concern that text messaging is bad for literacy. Some parts of the essay found a positive relationship between reading and spelling, while at some point didn’t. This opinion of my is greatly supported by all of the sources that I’ve read. I can easily say that text messaging can be bad as its taken
lowly by some teenagers but it can also benefit them with an accuracy and mastery of reading and comprehending a literary work. As I end this essay of mine, I’d like to know your thoughts about the effects of text messaging in literacy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Book • Freire, Paulo and Donaldo, Macedo. Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. England: Taylor and Francis Publishing, 1987. •Booream, Ellen. Texting the Underworld. England: Penguin Books, August 2013. World Wide Web •http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130826&page=1. March 7 2018.