OMG! Texting may not make teens bad spellers!

U R prolly not going to believe this, but chatspeak doesn't turn kids into bad spellers.

Srsly.

A new study found that regularly using chatspeak -- the official term is simple messaging service -- doesn't automatically make teens bad spellers. This is a major concern among some parents who think that frequent texting will transform their children into abbreviating, acronyming, emoticoning adults who think "what" is really spelled "wat."

Chatspeak was analyzed from about 40 students ages 12 to 17. The teens were also asked to take a standard spelling test. The Canadian researchers discovered the young people used an enormous range of types of new language, and that girls outranked boys in use of new language.

But they didn't find much evidence that using abbreviated words, shortcuts, word combinations, letters and numbers or even phonetic spellings was connected with bad spelling. Overall, general spelling ability was linked with making spelling errors, not with using new language in instant messaging. The researchers did discover that boys who were poorer spellers tended to use more new language and more abbreviations.

In a news release, lead author Connie Varnhagen, a psychology professor at the University of Alberta in Canada, said: "Kids who are good spellers [academically] are good spellers in instant messaging. And kids who are poor spellers in English class are poor spellers in instant messaging."

The study was recently published in the journal Reading and Writing.

-Jeannine Stein

Photo credit: Matt Sayles / Associated Press

Comments

[Rudy Haugeneder, Victoria, BC, Canada]

R U kidin me? 1 litle study & everting is ok. Gud luk. Da net is no makin us real stoopid?
2 bad ma & pa can't reed. Dey won't beleaf me. Dey r so stoopid.

[Brent Paine]

Ummmmmmmmmm, this could, possibly, be THE worst study ever.

I mean they have as well have picked a random guy and girl, surveyed them, collected their grant money and *Poof* disappeared.

40 subjects? Really? Wow, I sincerely hope that we don't start testing drugs with these types of numbers. Not only that, but we're drawing conclusions, not only related to differences between boys and girls, but also by spelling ability, so what's our sample size here?

Thoroughly disappointed, I must say.

[Kathleen]

All I can say is it's in the context of the conversation.

In a letter to someone really important or something like a resume, it's something important to not use chat speak.

Some teens still don't have smart phones, so they abbreviate a lot because it's actually harder and takes more time to spell things out to their entirety. Myself, since I have an iPhone, I'm blessed with being able to type things fast... and I'm too used to not abbreviating words.

It is not a bad thing. It's the context it is used in.

[Boys Military Schools]

Using text words or abbreviated words are most used by teens to make their message short due to a minimal time of relaying messages to others, but it could not harm anybody using abbreviated words if you know where to use it.