Slashdot Mirror
Study Sez Txt Msgs Make Kidz Gr8 Spellrz
Picknz writes "The Telegraph reports that researchers have found texting can improve literacy among pupils by giving them extra exposure to word composition outside the school day. According to the report, the association between spelling and text messaging may be explained by the 'highly phonetic nature' of the abbreviations used by children and the alphabetic awareness required for successfully decoding the words. 'It is also possible that textism use adds value because of the indirect way in which mobile phone use may be increasing children's exposure to print outside of school,' says the report. 'We are now starting to see consistent evidence that children's use of text message abbreviations has a positive impact on their spelling skills,' adds Professor Claire Wood. 'There is no evidence that children's language play when using mobile phones is damaging literacy development.'"
I work on several writing projects involving technology. A really fascinating study showed that when you ask most kids if they write for fun, most of them will say no. If you then ask them how many text / email / IM / blog / etc., nearly everyone will answer in the affirmative. Teens don't see these kinds of things as "writing". Once you sort of get through to them that it is, it's like a lightbulb turns on in their heads, and they suddenly start getting engaged in English.
In other words, while it's really easy to mock texting (tweets especially annoy me), I think that if modern teachers learn to take advantage of all the writing teens are actually doing, we could see a revolution in English skills.
grammar Nazi.
Eye agri wit tee art-tickle
txtin maid mi an eksellent spellir
Phonetics can also make horrible spellers. Our school had a phonetics program called ITA (a US variation on the UK ITA system)when I was in grade school. It made pretty good readers out of kids, but crappy spellers, because they got used to the conventions of the phonetics program, and not actual grammar / spelling rules. Years after getting out of the system, I still saw high school seniors in honors programs who couldn't spell worth a damn.
...they'll become great cryptographers once they start texting in rot13 so mom can't spy on them.
From TFA:
"may be"
"possible"
Interesting. It's also possible that injecting people with heroin helps them stay away from drugs. And may be beating children with baseball bats gives them a wonderful childhood. Who knows?
K. If this works, where else can we use it? How about someone clone Slashdot. Get rid of the text message board, and force us to use a live VOIP program to read and reply to comments (i.e. listening and talking) . Maybe, instead of increasing spelling skills, the increased human exposure would improve our social skills!
BTW First Mic Spam.
Sure, now if we could just get the little darlings to find the "Shift" key occasionally and maybe toss in a period or comma now and again ...
Then again, maybe "textism" is the new "literate".
Anybody who texts should of known this already. Texting is not only addicting but educational!
This is like saying Ebonics is a language.
So now, all our great works will be reduced to 140 characters with no caps, no punctuation, and hacked up spelling. ee cummings was way ahead of his time.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
It's "should have known" not "should of known".
And yet the rate of instances in which I want to punch these texting douchebags repeatedly in the face is trending upwards.
ur screwd.
This is the original Anonymous Coward. Epic FAIL for you!
I want to see this damn study. Every summary, including the university's own, has a different age selection and a different size group. If you can't even read a study and get a concrete fact, like the number of subjects, correct how can you espouse on the conclusions with any accuracy.
Sure, this is anecdotal, and the plural of anecdote is not data, but if students who text all the time are actually good spellers and have a grasp on English, why does it seem like more and more students are using text abbreviations in actual writing? It seems like almost every time I talk to my friends who are either graduate teaching assistants or actually teaching classes themselves someone else has done this on a paper. And this is in a large public university. The bigger problem to me is that people are texting so much, and seeing these abbreviations so much (advertising, twitter, etc) that they are not realizing that there are appropriate and inappropriate times to use these abbreviations, and more and more often they are using them at the wrong times.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
My spelling must be great, because I lived through the 8.3 DOS filename days.
I am not a crackpot.
They really ought to include a text expansion feature in all IM and SMS programs. Then when the kid types gr8, it will appear as great in the actual message and there will be visual reinforcement of the correct spelling. It will also serve to reduce annoyance to people who hate txt speak. If the 140 char limitation is important in the application, then the messages can be transmitted as-is in txt-speak and translated automatically on the other side. Think of it as a primitive form of message compression.
...abstinence education may help curb teen pregnancies. Just ain't so.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
That |337 speak very well could become the language of the future, and why not? More people are socializing now in the cyber environment in many cultures than they are in the real world. More and more people are meeting their life partners through sites like Lava Life rather than in bars or grocery stores. Internet abbreviations like lol and lmao and brb are as common as the word "the" or if you rather the common misstep "teh". No longer are people limited to finding a hometown girl/boy they can find love a continent away on the other side of the world. Now, because of this social movement there is required a global language and what better than geek speak to connect everyone on a global scale. I have friends from all over the world and there is not one of them that doesnt recognize internet abbreviations like lol and brb. The more sophisticated alpha-numeric way of speaking I find more popular around the cracker/hacker crowd, people who type everything 1n w4y5 much |1k3 7h15 50m3 g37 |\/|0r3 cr3471\/3.. If you pay attention though the masses, young or old, which populate cyberspace really do speak a language all their own. Me my kids my parents and their parents all understand this language at its base form. I will say, because I work in a field which requires me pouring over notes from all my employees that a fair percentage type out letters making a lot of the same changes to the english language as they do when txt'n or blogging. It is also not uncommon for me to occasionally see a 'lol' in a formal business email!
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
We should change the spelling of words in our language so that they have (and keep) a connection with the pronounciation of said words.
Convention over configuration, but for our language.
you probably can't be more proud than the day when you find out your kid is a 1337 73xx70r...
Privacy is terrorism.
'There is no evidence that children's language play when using mobile phones is damaging literacy development.'"
I give you...Facebook. A veritable cornucopia of evidence.
I think it depends on the language. E.g. in Denmark we have a common joke that "written Norwegian [that is, Bokmål] is just Danish with spelling errors" because Norwegian words generally are spelled more in line with the phonetics of the language than it's the case in Danish. Furthermore, the vowels and consonants are flattened in the language of my generation which makes the connection to the "official spelling" of words less obvious. I don't see how the phonetic spelling creativity of text messaging is going to help then.
I wouldn't be surprised if texting doesn't cause particular problems, but when I see university students who can't tell the difference between "they're" "their" and "there", "it's" and "its", "then and "than", and "where" and "were", there's something wrong with the way they are being taught to write. They aren't getting the feedback they need, they aren't getting enough practice, or something else. I'm fine with the inevitable evolution that occurs within the English language, but when the usage doesn't even make SENSE, then there's a serious problem. If I received a job application riddled with as many junior-high-school-level errors as I've seen, I certainly wouldn't be encouraged to hire the person.
FTFY.
I'll ignore the multiple spelling/grammar/punctuation flaws in your post for the sake of making my point.
You are Cwix, slashdot member #1671282. That is all I know about you, aside from what you write. Much of the internet is this way, though admittedly Facebook and texting imply some previous, and likely real-life relationship as well. Since the only further information others know about you is based on the content of your posts, the lack of proofreading and spellcheck running implies that accurately expressing yourself isn't valued. For the ladies, it's akin to wearing mismatched clothes or a wrinkled dress when going to a bar.
How you say what you say is just as important as the message you're trying to convey. This is why grammar nazis like myself make it a point to express ourselves accurately. Sometimes it's expressed condescendingly, and I think that THAT is a problem (since it obviously doesn't help much), but summarily knocking the desire to express one's self accurately is shortsighted.
Awesome troll! Mod parent up!
Remember those Dr. Seuss books? And how he played with words to find his rhymes? Text messages seem to work on a similar level. Shortening messages by using homonymous and homophonic letters and even numbers seem to do the same for our kids.
It can work adversely too. For me, it sure did sometimes with the English language (being no native speaker). I often learn words by tracing its root and then building on it. Which led me to write appearantly instead of apparently (since appear, i.e. "how something appears" is the root of the word), as well as accidently (because it's one of the few words where you don't simply add -ly to form the adverb).
In general, the "play with it" approach served me well with English, though. It works great in Spanish and French too. You can take a lot of words and "hammer them into shape" given the rules of the language you want to work in.
So while texting usually leads to wrong spelling, it seems our kids are well aware of it, and creating creative abbreviations for those words seems to spur their ability to actually understand. After all, they also gotta be able to read what their peers wrote.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, you do. Because if you look illiterate in your posts, many people will assume you're illiterate. Or stupid.
Either of which means that they'll ignore anything you say as incoherent rambling.
Note, by the way, that you used "your" repeatedly in your post. In all the cases you used it, it should have been "you're"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"your"???
You do realize that poor grammar makes you sound juvenile and uneducated. We are not talking about lack of proof-reading. The "your" example in your posting, above, is a perfect example. It is not that you misspelled a word, or made a typo, you just don't know the difference between "your" and "you're"!
I am the first to admit that I am a horrible speller. But I know the correct words to use.... a spell checker can fix one, but it cannot fix the other. :)
I spend a lot of time on automotive support forums. Obviously, people who ask for help have a vested interest in making their request as complete and readable as possible. They also have all the time, and all the characters, they want to do this. I'd say that up to 10% of requests, universally from younger posters, are incomprehensible. The result is they GET no help; people won't take the trouble to figure out what they mean. Or worse yet, they get incorrect advice through people not understanding them. If you ask them to ask again, in a more understandable way, the arrogance and hostility is amazing. "This isn't f*cking english class, just HELP ME!"
Kids who text at least understand the concept of data compression!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There's an inherent danger within a society when the media pushes this kind of crap through all of its channels. Though, this has been happening for sometime, it's alarming to see intelligence folkes like yourselves hashing this out.
Your crazy. There spelling is terible. Were surrounded by idiot youth.
The study doesn't say much, because it was done on 9- and 10-year-old children. For students at that level, even a curmudgeon like me would expect texting to improve their writing skills. Show me that it improves the writing skills of high-schoolers or college students, and I'll start listening.
> a spell checker can fix one
*cough*
That should be spelling checker. It is checking the status of something, so we need to use a noun, not a verb.
Carry on.
It's not the bad grammer, the bad spelling, or the misuse of words that scares me.......it is the loss of original, logical, and constructive thought that is becoming more rampant. Just peruse Facebook, television, or message boards (even /. ) and you can quickly find dozens of samples of these. It is amazing how fast people go off subject. The average attention span has dropped by leaps and bounds. We solve problems (real or imagined) by just forgetting them and moving on to the next problem, or creating the next problem. OMG tht ws so 2 wks ago!
There are several forms of the english language which are completly unique but still remain english. I remember the form of speach Pikeys use understandable to only a small population. Then there is my grandfather he lived his whole life in Newfoundland, for those who may not know this is a Canadian province. Native newfoundlanders contort the english language into something that few people from the Canada let alone the world can understand as well. The common line between these are that they are limited in scope to the region where they are used. The language of the internet is limited only to the people who use it, there is no regional boundary not one of measureable scope anyway. The only way to not be exposed to it is to not be on the internet.
When you dislike the human race as much as I do, Karma:Bad is inevitable lol.
Webster's Unabridged:
spell checker,
a computer program for checking the spelling of words in an electronic document. Also called spelling checker.
[1980-85]
Although it's easiest to learn to speak English and the reason for this is the limited number of sounds - the last I read was 33 in the language. What drives people nuts is how screwy our rules of spelling and grammar are as they are derived from multiple sources, such as Welsh, Latin, French, German, Norman/Saxon and god only knows where else.
What I would like to see is people forget the damn spelling rules and simply spell words as the sound as that allows people to concentrate on getting ideas across instead of worrying about spelling "to/too" correctly.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
It's not just that it makes him look stupid, it makes him look arrogant and thoughtless. Reading is a pattern-matching activity. When you encounter incorrect word use, you have to backtrack, try homophones and so on, and then continue once you've found a match that is semantically valid.
Slashdot has about two million registered members, and each article receives a few hundred posts. At a conservative estimate, each post here will be read by a thousand people. If you can't be bothered to spend a few seconds to avoid the need for all of the other people to waste time while reading your post, it shows that you think that your time is worth more than theirs. Given the large number of readers, you are probably wasting a total of several minutes of other people's time, to safe a few seconds of yours. You are saying, before we even get to the content of your post, that your time is worth significantly more than your reader's time.
An attitude like that does not endear the writer to the reader. It's rude, and not excused by the fact that it may be unintentionally rude.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I also try to proofread what I write[...] The OED sites it as far back as 1849.
*cites* it...
unless, of course, you are Chinese and use pinyin to communicate via cell, instead of characters
Young people will always be be young people. And old people will always be old people. One set has learned the rules of society and knowns that they exist to make things go smooth and the other does not. Young people also live in a world centered on them. They go to a school system that is all about them, are raised by parents who care for them, watch TV that is aimed at them. Surely the world must be about them!
Well no. The full world, the world of adults is actually not about kids at all. Simple test, unless you are a parent or young, when are the school holidays in your region? Don't know? You did know when you were a kid. You will know when you are a parent. In fact in those circumstances the summer holiday is the center of your world. For the rest of adults? Sometime in the summer, maybe.
Kids when dealing with the non-kid world find themselves suddenly surrounded by adults that really just don't fucking want to deal with them. Random adult X is not your mommy. So on such forums, people are not willing to first put the child at ease, deal with their temper tantrums or fragile ego's. The kid is not used to have to deal with people not at its beg and call and voila, the age gap is there. But this one has "always" been there, or at least since the modern child hood was invented by the Victorians.
The generation gap is not just spelling. It is the simple attitude that has a teen first day on a temp job go to the sound system and put on his music... he just doesn't get that the pecking order changes from school to the workfloor. Oh some young kiddies will now protest, showing just how young and kidlike they are in the process.
The people posting on your forums just haven't learned yet that if you want to interact with other people it helps to follow the common unspoken rules. But this is their age and selfcenteredness, not their spelling skills at work. Plenty of older people who are self-centered start a forum post with "HELP please" in the subject, forcing anyone to open the post to see what the actual problem is... bad spelling? No, just not being able to do the mental work that other people have their own lives and so if you want their help you ought to make that as smooth a process as possible.
Just watch the number of people here who don't use the subject box to announce the content of their post making it more work to determine if its worth to open it if it hasn't been modded up yet.
As people grow up, and this is more then gaining years, they learn that other people have their own lives and that by communicating effectively, they can have favors done more easily because ultimately it is less work. Kids don't just have the social skills yet. That is why they are kids.
A simple example? I use paragraphs to make the text easier to read. Because I want YOU to read my posts, so I make it easy to do so. Read slashdot and see if you can find posts that are just one big block of text. Clearly such posters did NOT consider their audience capability to read the post comfortably. Not out of malice, just that knowing other people are human beings with their own feelings is not something that comes naturally to the young or self-centered.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If a generation Z kid tries to communicate with me in their language I simply won't understand them. I do understand that their language serves a purpose in terms of manual data compression. As another poster pointed out you could just have the phone translate it into English after it has been transmitted. Yet it does isolate them from the rest of the world who doesn't speak their language. I highly doubt it helps their English skills in any way because what they are practicing is not English.
I doubt that text messaging in txt language is in itself enough to make a good speller into a bad speller, but you are not going to find that out in a 10 week study. I think the argument is that children are getting too much of the wrong kind of language practice. They are getting a huge amount of practice in a language which does not exist outside of their group. It may be true that the txters who are poor spellers may have been poor spellers even without mommy's cell phone, and it's not like they would have had any writing practice outside of school anyway. But the txt spelling is constantly being reinforced. It would be very surprising indeed if this had no repercussions whatsoever outside of cell phone use.
I personally believe that spelling is not the problem. Nowadays nearly everything written is written on a computer and computers have spell checkers. It's like being able to do mathematics in your head versus needing a calculator. Technology has made English spelling into a skill that is borderline archaic. And the fact that English is so absurdly non-phonetic also cannot be ignored. Maybe the language should gradually be changed to be spelled more like Spanish for instance. That would be moving in the direction of logic and progress. Txt language moves in exactly the opposite direction toward greater complexity in spelling. It is even more difficult to learn. Aside from the unnecessarily complicated spelling, the English language is one of the easiest in the world to learn. I have little doubt that that is the most important reason that it has replaced French as the international language, even though French is a much more beautiful language.
I think the biggest problem with all the txting is that the 140 character limit in nearly all of their communication may encourage a short attention span when it comes to reading, listening, and maybe all forms of communication. Yes, it encourages brevity/conciseness as well, but at the expense of genuine literacy. It is simply not possible to communicate complex and subtle concepts in less than 140 characters. If you zone out any time a "wall of text" exceeds a few sentences you are going to have a lot of trouble understanding complex and subtle ideas. And if you limit your outgoing communications to no more than a few sentences at a time you are going to severely limit the complexity and subtlety of ideas that you can express. Eventually this laziness, lack of patience, and expectation that all information be received in easily digestible little pieces can become habitual and you won't realize that anything is wrong with the way you are processing information.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
When I was a kid, I'd read for fun. That was my "exposure to print outside of school." Don't kids read anymore?
I'm not knocking your desire to express yourself properly. I'm knocking the desire to correct other people.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Just to be a pedant, as that seems to be the prevalent mode of thought in this discussion thread, you clearly intended your first sentence as the interrogative:
"You do realize that poor grammar makes you sound juvenile and uneducated, don't you?"
Clearly the poster you were referring to didn't understand that, and you were asking the question. In latin:
"Nonne scit, mala grammatica facit ineruditus et praetextatus sonas?"
There. I hope you're all satisfied with the level of ridiculous over-reaction and mindless self-appreciation I put into this post. Grins!
'There is no evidence that children's language play when using mobile phones is damaging literacy development.'
I suppose Professor Wood has never graded papers of 6th graders. I question if young students can tell the difference between "language play" and the more formal language necessary for a short essay.
If you want people to actually listen to you, you derive benefit from spending more time proofreading.
If you don't want people to actually listen to you, why are you typing up the post in the first place? This seems like a special kind of stupid...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I remember a joke about phonetic spelling. A possible phonetic spelling of FISH is "GHOTI".
GH as in the word "tough" is pronounced "F".
O as in the word "women" is pronounced "I"
TI as in the word "motion" is pronounced "SH"
Thus GHOTI spells "fish". So much for phonetic spelling!
No, actually I did not mean for it to be constructed interrogatively. It was apparent by his tonality that he already knew he sounded juvenile and uneducated. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY
I was still in school when they switched over and even I have little to no idea about the new rules. As a result I now use an inconsistent mix of the old and new rules.
That's fairly common with people who were switched over halfway through their education and it'll take us a generation to get the old rules out of the system, simply because everyone above a certain age has still learned the old ones. And this is with a few minor changes. Large changes like what would be neccessary to align English pronounciation and spelling probably would take several steps, which would take correspondingly long.
Well, unless you do a radical change that means that either everyone relearns the language or your change is completely ignored. And we all know what would be the more likely outcome.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
This hits one of my sore spots.
English is NOT my first (not even my second) language, and yet - I am constantly baffled by the utter lack of spelling of the "natives".
Reading through the answers to this post, and seeing how people who criticize "kids" for their spelling can't themselves keep their own posts correctly worded is amusing and saddening at the same time.
I don't think anyone even noticed yet in the summary, quote: "Professor Claire Wood. 'There is no evidence that children's language play when using mobile phones is damaging literacy development.'""
10 mod points for anyone correctly pointing out the verb in this sentence? Anyone, anyone?
I know that "real languages" are dying, but i wonder if we are just "evolving" or in fact "devolving" our culture.
When I saw the movie "idiocracy" for the first time, i thought it was a hilarious comedy. Now I start to get second thoughts and start to wonder......
Actually, on Slashdot poor spelling and grammar might make you look like a moron. But on most other sites, it makes you "normal".
It's like showing up at a party in a suit and tie when everyone else is wearing jeans and polo shirts. It's uncool.
The internet is full of so many people who don't bother to spell stuff properly or look at what they typed before hitting submit that it's mutually reinforcing.
You failed to capitalize 'Slashdot'. The adjective 'previous' doesn't have a noun to modify. You should hyphenate 'spellcheck-running'. Usage of all-caps for emphasis is probably ungrammatical, but I might let that slide. Man, the grammar Nazis are really sliding in quality these days.
I always hated it when my teachers and my parents corrected me. I'm certain I could have become better at everything I ever tried without their constant correction ;)
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
> Years after getting out of the system, I still saw high school seniors in honors programs who couldn't spell worth a damn.
I have a friend who teaches intro composition classes at one of the largest US Universities. The first year students wrestle with trying to write (or think about) anything in the abstract.
I went to one of the best colleges in the US, and people considered my writing skills excellent. But I know, in retrospect, how little I knew. (I'm sure I'll know more about how little I know now in the future.) I wrote tens or hundreds of thousands of lines of code, but probably well under 500 pages of English prose in all that time, and with no real skills-building. I did not learn how to proofread English well until after college, when I had been writing and editing novels for a few years. And it took those few years to learn.
The problem is a lot bigger than spelling.
(Although for spelling, use the Wordly Wise books, if they're still out and like they were. Every child you teach with them will hate how much work it is, a little, But they'll get used to it and they'll learn A LOT more than they do with most spelling books. Our school switched to them around 4th or 5th grade, from... maybe Laidlaw? The difference was amazing.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
> And yet the rate of instances in which I want to punch these texting douchebags repeatedly in the face is trending upwards.
Quick! Someone get a control group!
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
How does he in any way benefit from hiding the fact that he's illiterate or stupid from people who would not recognize him if they met him?
Exactly. The people saying that spelling doesn't matter are the same ones who get turned down for jobs due to their inability to spell when writing a resume and then blame the employer for it. I know a very qualified person who sent out dozens of resumes after getting laid off but wrote "collage" instead of "college" on their resume. Guess how many interviews he had....
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I think the biggest problem with all the txting is that the 140 character limit in nearly all of their communication may encourage a short attention span when it comes to reading, listening, and maybe all forms of communication. Yes, it encourages brevity/conciseness as well, but at the expense of genuine literacy. It is simply not possible to communicate complex and subtle concepts in less than 140 characters. If you zone out any time a "wall of text" exceeds a few sentences you are going to have a lot of trouble understanding complex and subtle ideas. And if you limit your outgoing communications to no more than a few sentences at a time you are going to severely limit the complexity and subtlety of ideas that you can express. Eventually this laziness, lack of patience, and expectation that all information be received in easily digestible little pieces can become habitual and you won't realize that anything is wrong with the way you are processing information.
Yeah, I write forum posts of a few hundred words (perhaps low thousands), and people act like it's a dissertation. I could stand to trim my writing, I'll admit, but not down that far
By the way, I tend to avoid txt-speak even when I actually am texting. sometimes I get ungrammatical to fit within 140/160 characters, though.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
So everyone should lower their grammatical standards to "fit in"??? Somehow that doesn't seem right. I don't think people should obsess over spelling and typos for informal forum postings, but using the proper words shouldn't be demonized :)
But tlaking 2 me liek this can b bad 4 yuor health.
Boredom is bliss.
Writing poorly makes you sound like a dumbass.
Should you really be upset at a group of people who are so fervently dedicated to helping you sound smarter?
The tools of correction may be cruel, but they are effective. Perhaps if you cared a little more about what you wrote the grammar nazi's would not be such a problem.
Nobody is saying you're stupid. They're just saying you sound stupid. ;)
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
+1 Funny
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
1. The plural of "nazi" is "nazis".
2. "Nazi" need not be capitalised if you're not talking about the National Socialist German Workers Party.
If it's not the "copy this to your status if you believe [X]", there are links to likes (they apparently spend time browsing other people's likes on (I guess) "like sites", then hit "Like".
(Okay, to be fair, I've seen this from adults as much as kids.)
That being said, some of my kids' friends actually use the "Notes" section of FB as a blog of sorts, primarily to rant about something in school, but that does count as 'writing'. I think it's more likely they'd use FB than make their own site or sign up for blogger. And I've noticed their grammar/spelling improves a lot when using the "Notes" section of FB.
i dnt thnk txtng is 4 evry1 or evrythng
Sure, you can read this, but it's an absolute fucking mess.
Saying texting makes you a better speller is like saying ebonics should be a standardized curriculum because so many people talk slang. Language adapts naturally over time, but this is a bastardization of it. If you think I'm full of shit, try being from the US and listen to somebody speaking Cockney. The words are English, but the meaning is gibberish to most folks. Same with texting.
When technology places constraints (like texting), people will find ways to make it easier to use. The problem is that our language is being adapted to the technology and not the other way around. Let's make the technology work for us instead of against us.
Poor spelling doesn't just hamper communication on internet forums. I wish some of my co-workers would take the time to proofread. Their comments on our issue tracker can at times be impossible to decipher.
The title of this news item contains a typo.