College Students\' Text Messaging, Use

College students' text messaging, use of textese and literacy skills

The increased use of text messaging by young people is one of the most criticized aspects of modern culture. In the study "College students' text messaging, use of textese and literacy skills," Drouin (2011) attempts to explore the question of the extent to which using text messaging has measurably affected adolescent's literary skills. Some teachers have complained that students use text message-style spellings and expressive forms in formal research papers, while other linguists have celebrated text messaging as a useful and dynamic function of literacy and state that it can only enhance students' expressive potential (Drouin 2011:68).

Drouin first engages in a literature review. The author notes how the phenomenon of retroactive interference and decay, in which previous knowledge can interfere with the acquisition of new knowledge, suggests that text messaging could have an impact upon student language skills. There is also research that indicates that tasks which require similar processes can lead to a crossover effect. Empirical research is somewhat mixed in terms of correlating frequent texting with poor literacy skills, with some studies finding a positive relationship and others finding none; nor is there conclusive evidence that the use of 'textese' translates into substandard literacy -- some studies suggest that students are able to make conscious, mindful shifts in terms of how they use different words in context (Drouin 2011:69).

The actual research study asked 152 students "who were enrolled in an introductory psychology class at a midsize Midwestern university" to rate their text messaging, email, and social media consumption on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from never to very frequently (Drouin 2011:70). They were also given tests of reading fluency and spelling. The findings of the study suggested that not all the students were using texting in formal contexts and many were instead able to use it mindfully. Texting frequency was found to have a positive relationship with literacy skills, although the study did find a negative relationship between using textese in certain, specific contexts, such as emailing professors, and reading accuracy. That texting frequency had a positive relationship with literacy skills contradicted previous research was ascribed the fact that "as text messaging has become more pervasive in the United States, college students with greater reading and spelling abilities may be using text messaging more frequently, or that those with poorer literacy skills may be using text messaging less frequently" (Drouin 2011:72).

There are, however, admitted limits to the study. Firstly, the sampling size was relatively small and from a homogeneous population. There may also be correlational factors that affect the result which do not reflect the causation of higher rates of student literacy who text. Students who are highly plugged in to Internet technology, for example, may be more affluent and thus more apt to have advanced technology which enhances texting -- and also to more educational resources which enable the students to effectively distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate contexts for texting. Improved but more expensive smartphones that have grown more common in the past years may be a particularly important component of the degree to which affluence affects enhanced used of texting. The fact that students who cannot distinguish between appropriate contexts to use textese have poorer literacy skills does not seem surprising.

One way to examine the degree to which socioeconomic factors are related to literacy would have been to compare literacy rates of students of various income levels and backgrounds from the pre-texting to post-texting era, to see if literacy had been impacted differently, within different socioeconomic groups. It would also be interesting to explore certain students from specific demographics and disadvantaged educational backgrounds have more difficulty understanding when it is appropriate to use textese.