by R.P. Bailey

Created on: February 22, 2008

After teaching at the college level for six years, and in secondary and elementary schools for nine years I do think texting has both positive and negative implications. While we do live in a technologically driven society, and it is important for us to embrace the changing future of communication science it is equally important to remember the value of personable communication, or face to face communication.

When I first started teaching, 15 years ago, this obviously was not an issue, but during the last four or five years, my college teaching years, I have seen a large decline in proper educative communication styles.

Students have an increase in misspellings, sentence structuring, and can not seem to verbally express themselves intelligently at times. A large part of public speaking is being able to properly communicate while conveying a message, but students often have difficulty expressing thoughts legibly; be it in paper format, or in a speech.

Text messaging does not always require cognitive thinking, and does not require the user to spell out complete words. Texting usually leaves only enough space for students to abbreviate their intended word, which leaves many confused when they are writing papers because they often forget the proper spelling of a word. Abbreviated words are not accepted in school settings, or in the work place.

Text messaging does not convey the tone of a message either. This often leads to miscommunication, because the receiver may misinterpret a vital, serious message, or even misconstrue the message to mean something entirely different from what the sender originally intended.

It is impersonal not allowing a true relationship an opportunity to develop. Communication between persons is an experience that takes our whole being, all of our senses. Texting takes away body language, sight, touch, and the personal experience we need as human beings.

Texting is hampering communication, but not completely destroying communication. Educators, employees, parents, and text messenger's need to remember to separate the value of the two mediums; face to face communication and texting have rules and guidelines that should be remembered and used in proper context.

Texting is here to stay. Educators have added computer literacy to the curriculum, but I think that communication courses should be added as well. Media communication impacts all of our lives, and it will impact future generations more and more; which makes teaching communications courses vitally important.

While texting is too popular to be dismissed it is important to remember face to face communication. It is equally important to remind, and encourage students, and others that a proper education, and continued growth in the work place can not be abbreviated either.

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