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I don't believe the internet is hurting reading skills at the moment, and if Google succeed with their 'books' plan of scanning such a wide range of books to be widely available then it will go some way indeed to improving reading skills.

I know that I personally would choose to read much more if it didn't mean I had to lug books in and out of my university library constantly, if the books I required were online in full then I would probably get work done well before deadlines, instead of forcing myself to the library a couple days prior to the deadline to cram it all into very little time.

The argument that using 'txt' speak is bad for language, and hence reading and writing skills is flawed in that to create a legible abbrevation requires you to process which letters and syllables are most important in the word, I paraphrase from Professor David Crystal of Cambride University there. Also, as much as you consider the possibility that a teenager who might use '4' in place of 'for' when writing in a formal context, such as an exam, it is a ludicrous suggestion, and if said teenager is not intelligent enough to realise their mistake in that context then they have bigger problems to contend with than being able to spell.

The key factor in this argument is, as mentioned above, the ability of the person to distinguish which version of a word is acceptable in each context, which is essentially the same ability which tells you not to swear in front of children, as it's not appropriate, not to use slang when talking to customers and so on. So for the very same reason that I can't see society degenerating into pure slang being used for speech, I can't say that the internet is harming people's writing skills.

One thing that could be argued however is that the internet and computers in general has altered is people's ability to write, I don't mean their ability as a word smith as such, but the physical aspect, many people work on computers, and therefore have very little need to actually physically write anything, other than signing their name occasionally. I know when it comes to exams, for me it's a struggle to keep writing for the 2 hours, as not being used to writing so much so quickly gives me lovely hand cramps, I'm sure alot of other people might blame it on this as well, but often it's not my brain that limits my exam performance, but purely the amount of pages I can fill in the allotted time.

Learn more about this author, James Hills.
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