Texting 2 much

C U @ 5. TTYL.

Translation: See you at 5. Talk to you later.

Any parent may have seen a text message like that at one point or another as they communicate with their child regarding plans for after school. But, district teachers and students say cell phone texting has more than influenced our communication with others. It has crept into schoolwork as well.

District teachers say they have problems keeping text abbreviations out of academic papers, like "u" for "you" and "4" in lieu of "for." In addition, students don't punctuate as thoroughly. It's a problem OHS senior Jeserica Murry admits.

"Sometimes it is difficult because I realize I am writing for class and not for my friends and have to edit out things," she said.

She said she texts as often as possible, even to the point of getting the phone taken away several times. Her parents have paid $100 just to "bail" her phone back from school. Her English teacher, Patsy Murray, said many parents contact students during school to keep in touch about what is happening.

When asked how many students had received texts from parents during a class, roughly 90 percent of the students in Murray's class raised their hands.

Permian senior Brandon Luna said he agreed teens text more than they talk on the phone. He said it is a way to keep in touch and check on what they need to do at school.

His friend and fellow senior Stephanie Barrientes said she texts often.

"Every minute I can," she said.

However, she said it can be easy to slip text lingo into formal school work.

"You can easily forget and leave out a letter you wouldn't put in while texting," Barrientes said.

OHS senior Kristie Caudillo said she likes texting because it is faster than talking and seems more efficient for her. But, she notices sometimes a text abbreviation or phrase may make it into her work for class since she has started writing in the more informal dialect.

"I sometimes mess up and put the text word and try to fix it in class," she said.

Senior Ricardo Madrid said texting has started to replace even simple conversations.

"You text. You don't call now," he said. "You don't even finish sentences, and teachers catch texting a lot in class."

Permian English teacher Janis May said text shorthand shows up constantly in student papers. She said technology as a whole has led to students wanting things done easier with less work.

"It's the general question of do we have to write it all out. Everything is shortened," she said.

May said a place exists for texting, but classroom parameters are different. She said she asked students during a lesson on letters from the 1600s and 1700s if they had written a letter recently. Only three hands went up. She then asked if they had sent an e-mail in the last month or a text in the previous 24 hours. Many hands shot up.

"Think of what we have lost. We are sharing letters 400 years old. Will we share a text?" she asked. "I think when ‘I don't think I understand' becomes ‘IDK' that something gets lost in the translation."

Ector yearbook and seventh-grade English teacher Laurie May said everything has started to look like text.

"We read a poem on Robert Frost, and when a student saw a closed parenthesis, the student said ‘Oh, he put a sad face,' " she said.

Laurie said capitalization and punctuation are partly lost in the formal writing done in her English classes since the advent of computers, and she said texting has made the problem even worse. Many won't capitalize the proper noun "I." As a teacher, she can only explain to students that formal writing is different from the texts sent to a friend.

"I explain the difference, that formal and informal writing each have a purpose, a time and a place," she said.

However, even in class students can't get away from the phone.

"They will hide it in their pocket and text with one hand while taking notes with the other," she said.

Junior Vanessa Ortega said she texts in the morning, at lunch and at night, nearly constantly. In her experience, most teens don't really talk on cell phones much anymore unless talking to parents or a significant other.

Texting isn't completely bad, Ortega said. She believes it actually helps her because she can think more about what she is saying and stay in touch with teachers about class assignments.

"It has helped me be more responsible," she said. Also, she said text and school writing are easily separated for her. Bonham seventh-grade English teacher Michael Virgin said he agreed that's the case for most students.

"I think text writing is not a big problem yet in school. Kids are smart enough to separate texting friends and writing for school," he said.

Sophomore OHS English teacher Naomi Urias said spelling is the big problem caused by texting, but students have started summarizing better since texting became big.

"I do summarize better, and on the phones there is help to spell words," OHS senior Sandy Armendariz said.

Murray said her concerns with texting tie to how she believes it stifles creativity by not allowing students to embellish and elaborate their thoughts. That's a constant battle.

"We have had to hit it hard since the beginning of the year as a department," she said.

OHS senior Austin Killam said he doesn't like to text because calling seems faster. He said he thinks any of the negative impacts of texting are just human nature, not a new development.

"I think we already try to take shortcuts like writing as little as possible," he said. "Text shorthand is just another form of laziness."

TEXTING LINGO

>> BFF: Best friends forever.

>> LOL: Laugh out loud.

>> TTYL: Talk to you later.

>> CU: See you.

>> AML: All my love.

>> PPL: People.

>> L8r: Later.

>> U: You.

>> WOA: Work of art.

>> BC: Because.

>> OMG: Oh my god.

Note, texting lingo rapidly changes, and shorthand may no longer be needed as much with new types of phone software that interprets a person's intended word automatically.

Source: www.techdictionary.com/chat.html