The Write Stuff
According to Writing, Technology and Teens, a study released in April 2008 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and The National Commission on Writing, teens generally do not believe that technology negatively influences the quality of their writing. However, while the vast majority of them (85%) use the Internet and cell phones to send messages to their friends, most (60%) don’t think that the electronic text they’re generating is real writing. Instead, they see an important distinction between the “writing” they do for school and the “communications” they send online or through text messaging.
Still, despite their best intentions, 64% of the 700 12- to 17-year-olds who were surveyed admit that the shortcuts they use in their text-based messages do sometimes creep into their schoolwork.
- 50% say they sometimes use informal styles instead of proper capitalization and punctuation in school assignments.
- 38% say they have used messaging acronyms such as “LOL” for “laughing out loud.”
- 25% say they have used :-) and other emoticons.
But the sentence may still have hope of avoiding complete destruction. The study also found that 86% of teens believe good writing is important to success in life, with 56% of them describing it as essential. And their parents agree; 83% of them believe there is a greater need to write well today than there was 20 years ago.
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