A Case for Texting

We live in a world dominated by technology. It is almost literally everywhere, and it plays a huge part in our everyday lives. Perhaps the most important piece of technology to teens across the country is their cell phone. Who knows how many hours of schooling have been disregarded because of the “necessity” of the receiving student to respond to a text.

It seems that teachers are especially against texting. There are strict punishments for any and all students found texting during class. Furthermore, many teachers will argue that texting is entirely unproductive. The texting lingo students use is seen as destructive because it let’s them communicate in grammatically incorrect ways e.g: “omg ur soooo lame”. Also, texting is stripping the youth of their ability to communicate one on one with each other.

I see it differently. Of course students should be spending their time in class learning. A teacher shouldn’t be ignored. Elsewhere, texting is more acceptable. If I’m on a family vacation, there is no chance of me being able to see my friends. A phone call is almost as impossible as physical contact. Being able to text a friend let’s me keep in touch with everybody I’m close to. I’d even say that it has made today’s youth closer to each other because we can communicate with each other at any time.

The largest issue is grammar. For the most part, texting involves informal abbreviations during a conversation. I for one rarely use periods, and my texts become comma splices. I’d also say that by texting hundreds if not thousands of times a day, the youth is improving their language. English is a language that is mastered by repetition.  What would help you’re English more, watching T.V or watching T.V while texting? The practice we get toward our language isn’t perfect during texting, but it is still practice. Words that I used to spell incorrectly have aren’t an issue for me anymore because I’ve used them so many times in a text message. 

This isn’t a calling for all students to whip their phones out during a lecture, but it’s more of a defense towards an often ridiculed pastime.  I know that I’ll never be able to read Shakespeare from reading my friends’ texts (though I do wonder how’d they react to me texting them in iambic pentameter), but it helps more than doing nothing. As an example, running a mile won’t help me become a great soccer player, but it is a lot more productive than eating a bag of chips.

Just my two cents on the matter, you’re mileage may vary.

Taylor Mali's poem

So like, here it goes:


In his poem, Taylor Mali asks a simple question in a creative way. He wants to know why people don't speak with more conviction. Instead, we add in “filler” words or phrases such as like or ya know. This makes the statement sound less convincing and even less meaningful. Often times too, a speaker will turn a declarative statement into an interrogative one, i.e. they’ll make a question out of something that clearly isn’t one. Because of this, nobody is sure of anything. He ended his poem with by saying “we can’t just question authority, we must speak with it”.

His poem hit home in a few ways. I know a lot of people who could turn the truest facts into a question. “Two plus two equals fourrrr?” To me, it instantly begins to discredit what they’ve just said. To top that off, there’s plenty of people I know who insert so many likes into  a sentence I can only pay attention to every time they say it. I for one try to speak with conviction as often as possible. Sometimes people will listen to you because you sound like you know what you’re doing, not because you actually do. An infantry officer in the USMC would tell his men to “flank left now”. It’s imperative that they do so. His men would realize that and they’d comply. If he said “we should like flank left?” the sense of urgency is lost.

Unfortunately, I’m guilty too. I often catch myself saying like when I don’t need to or adding an umm or ugh when I don’t have my next words ready. Sometimes, when I’m giving an answer, I’ll say “isn’t that when the BLANK did BLANK?” It took me until now to realize why; we don’t want to be wrong. By not being sure, we can’t be punished for being wrong. Having said that, there’s a time and a place for speaking with conviction. If I’m with my friends, I don’t need to hear “ya know what I’m saying” after each part of their story. We're all equals here, you can act like you know what you're talking about for a few minutes.