Quieting the Text Message Opposition Squad

As a product of the digital age, I have long been of the belief that technology is not, in fact, destroying everyone’s brains or souls (the two most popular arguments waged against technology). For me, the mere fact that technology continues to advance, and to advance at an ever-increasing rate, is proof that these new technologies are not eating away our brains – otherwise, who would be around to come up with new, better technologies? Yet it was enlightening to read Crystal’s academic/linguistic argument against those who see the technology of texting as an apocryphal entity.
His arguments really struck a chord with me because for the past few years, I’ve made it no secret that I openly judge everyone (to some extent) by the methods they use to text. For example, my little sister, who is currently a sophomore in high school, thinks it’s “cool” to intentionally misspell words (ex: “wut” instead of “what”, and “kewl” as opposed to “cool”), and also uses many asterisks and exclamation points in her messages. I’ve often told her that her misspellings and misuse of punctuation make her sound less classy in her texts, but she simply responds that she has no use for sounding classy in text messages – they’re not formal types of writing. (As a side note, consistent with Crystal’s observations, my sister is actually a very good writer.)
However, in the same vein that I think people who abuse the English language too much in their text messages sound less intelligent, I think being overly-formal makes a person sound pretentious. After all, as my little sister often tells me, “it’s just a text message”. There’s an important balance between formality and informality that is crucial to sending an acceptable text message – a balance that is lost on so many people. A text is not an e-mail, nor is it a letter, and thus does not need to be treated as such. Lowercase i’s are ok, as are un-capitalized proper nouns. I, for one, will often use two periods in place of a space..giving my texts a more flowing feel.
Yet I think the important distinction to make is that, while people use atrocious grammar and punctuation in text messages, most people understand that this impropriety should not flow over into their regular writing. My writing certainly doesn’t look like my text messages, and I think people who are concerned that texting could be detrimental to the overall state of writing have a pretty poor outlook on individual thought processes. Undoubtedly, even these worry-warts take on a different tone when they’re scribbling out a memo than when they’re writing a letter to a friend, and furthermore, change tone and style when writing a letter to a boss or other professional person. I don’t see how this process of subconscious textual change is any different than what goes through a person’s mind when he/she switches back and forth from text messaging to other sorts of writing. Thus, the text message opposition squad needs to stop worrying and embrace the opportunities that the digital world can bring.