I remember a time when we had to be conscious of the times phone calls were placed and mindful of the volume of our voice in a public conversation. Texting is without a doubt the most popular way of communicating for kids from 2-92 in the 21st century. It has afforded all the opportunity to "talk" anytime. anyplace or anywhere with little to no restrictions. The question is have we as a society allowed this liberty to eliminate or alter the traditional way of conversing. Texting lingo defies the laws of the English language by the removal of vowels, replacement of letters with numbers and giving no respect to the capitalization of the letter "I".
I've noticed how students are unable to effectively communicate in open forums and yet constantly post to social media websites (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) to carry on "their idea" of productive conversations. Can we contribute this to texting? Is it fair for us to expect students to be able to differentiate between social interactions and professional interactions when communicating? Who is responsible for teaching them and will this eventually be a factor in the development of curricula?
