REAL LIFE NEWS: TXT STORIES
by Hazed
Two stories about txt msgs...
Texting speeds kids up but slows them down
Predictive text certainly speeds things up when sending a text message, but new research shows that although it makes kids a lot faster, it also makes them dumber. Or, at least, more impulsive and less patient, and therefore more prone to make mistakes.
Professor Michael Abramson of Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, tested kids using a test in which they had to identify words that were in the wrong color (for example, the word red printed in blue, or the word blue printed in red). He discovered that the kids who use phones the most responded more quickly, but with less accuracy.
The interesting thing is that he wasn't actually looking for the effect of text messages; instead his research is about the effects of electromagnetic fields on young bodies. He's monitoring for failure of cognition that can be attributed to using the mobile phone. This latest research flies in the face of that, because texting exposes the brain to far less radiation than holding the phone to your head to make a call! But the test gave the same results for people who mostly used the phones for voice and those who predominantly texted.
The Professor confirms this, saying, "We don't think mobile phones are frying people's brains." That's good to know. But he blames the phone for the result: "If you're used to operating in that environment and entering a couple of letters and getting the word you want, you expect everything to be like that."
So the instant gratification provided by always-available comms, together with the predictive text, is to blame.
PhD in Texting
A Student at Birmingham University in England has become the first ever Doctor of Texting. Linguist Caroline Tagg has been awarded a PhD in text messages.
She trawled through 11,000 text messages containing 190,000 words in total to analyse them. The messages were sent by 235 people aged between 18 and 65. She was looking at the quality of the spelling and grammar, and how abbreviations were used.
The good news is that she discovered that the popular view that txt speak is eroding existing styles of written communications is wrong. The average text contains 17.5 words and she concluded that they are good for the English language.
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