Does Texting Affect Writing Rhetorical Analysis

Take a moment and look around at your surroundings. Whether you are at school, the library, grocery store, or work, you probably see someone with their head down looking at their phone. Text messaging is today’s way of the world of communication. Some may say it hinders young minds and their way of formal communication. Others may claim that texting has a good influence on composing written material. Yet, others feel indifferent to texting. Michaela Cullington’s “Does Texting Affect Writing?” is an informative essay that included some intriguing facts but inadequately reached its goal to persuade a person’s opinion towards the effects of texting on formal communication.

This informative essay, text messaging more known as “texting” has many

In beginning years of texting, the beliefs of effects on formal writing may have been true. As generations of technology as well as students have progressed so has the language. “The most common being “lol” (“Laugh out loud”), “gtg” (“Got to go”), “hbu” (“How about you?”), and “jk” (Just kidding”).” Now this language is a thing of the past with technology updates including a full QWERTY keyboard, auto-correct and speak to text no longer require these short-hand notes to be used. In turn, spelling may be an effect of this generational craze. Without having to fully understand the spelling of a word or a sense of proper usage in sentencing the student may lose capability of completing simple spelling tasks without the assistance of an automated spelling app or everyone’s best friend, Siri, providing all of the answers. In argument to this statement it can be said that programs such as Microsoft Word, Google, and etcetera have existed prior to text messaging and could be to blame for ease of access of answers without having to teach ones’

With these changes came a cultural change according to the NHTSA. The use of cell phones for common day to day activities, including driving, has created a negative impact on culture. Stated that the age group between twenty and twenty-nine years old have been improperly informed of the dangers of cell phone usage while driving causing a large number of vehicular fatalities (Rosen et al. 420-440). Other changes that are believed to be caused from the commonly accepted use of technology is the satisfaction students seek from others through not only text messaging but various other social media sources. Per Meier, student’s overall well-being can be affected by something as simple as a text message. They also state terms such as “facebocrastination”, utilizing Facebook rather than completing tasks that should be priority, has led to low self-control, high stress levels, and the feeling of the need to be consistently “connected” to the online world, much like text messaging (Adrian et al.