#digitalvoices

Nick Vallo                                                                                                       Vallo Page 1

Professor Winchock

Academic Writing

March 17, 2014

Research Narrative

            I selected this reading, The Joy of Texting by Lynne Truss, for the Rhetorical Analysis because the topic of privacy within the lines of texting fits this article perfectly.  With this specific article I can touch on how people tend to hide their texts from others, and how private the usage of texting has become.  People can have a full on conversation with others during a class, a presentation, even when they are speaking with someone else.  Texting is an extremely private way to communicate and has even become more private as you can send pictures now within texts and even in apps on phones.  Social Media is another growing form of communication that many people think is private when it really isn’t.  Pressing the send button now is something that many people really need to think about before they actually send their message or post.  For my Rhetorical Analysis I was able to depict the specifics of texting and how it evolving communication for everyone who uses it.  Texting and social media are growing every single day as people from generations older and younger use texting on a daily basis.  It has become the most common form of communication and is still growing as more and more people begin to jump on the bandwagon of texting.  The idea that texting is such a private form of communication really inspired me to choose this article for my Rhetorical Analysis.  Being that I use a phone almost twenty-four seven I really felt that the topic of texting would be something interesting to gain further knowledge of and develop an idea of how people are using texting today.  I would like to go deeper into texting and social media and how it is not a form of privacy, it is actually the opposite of that. 

In the article The Joy of Texting by Lynne Truss, she depicts many ideas of how to communicate with others through texting.  Truss shows us that there are many different ways to text (Truss 939.) You have the ability to use slang, or text properly and write in complete sentence form (Truss 940.)  But whichever way you choose to text you must make sure that your recipient can understand what you have sent to them.  The fast form of communication is taking over as the newest form of communicating with one another.  You have the ability to read a text and not respond, or you can respond right away, regardless of what you do, it’s changing the way we communicate with people, and is becoming a large and main form of communication that can be just as unreliable as reliable.  All in all texting is changing communication, some would say for the better others would say for the worse.  Truss depicts the aspects of texting fast and or slow depending on who it is that is texting (Truss 940.)  Here she speaks about how she enjoys texting fast and others enjoy waiting for some length of period before returning the text (Truss 940.)  Also Truss speaks about using acronyms, or slang to shorten text, but some people might not be able to understand what you are saying since there are so many different ways to use abbreviations and different dialect.  With newer phones that have social media applications on them as well, tying social media to Truss’ ideas will be very easy for me to accomplish.   

The research questions that interested me after reading this article were the idea of the positives and negatives of texting.  With this topic I could have addressed how Lynn depicts both sides of texting, as well as my individual interactions with texting and how I have experienced

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both sides of texting.  Another topic that was interesting to me was talking about social media.  Although it would’ve been somewhat hard to commit to this topic through just the text messaging background I would have been able to base it off of social media and texting as well.  Being that all phones have Internet so this way all of the phones would be able to access a form of social media and how phones and social media have become tied together as one, with twitter and Facebook being used as apps on many of them.  An additional topic that I would have loved to touch base on texting etiquette as well since the article is all about the decorum of texting and the certain steps that people take to text another, whether it is a longer period of time, or not using abbreviations so that other people receiving the texts can understand what is being said in the conversation.  Lastly another topic that I considered was the correlation of the abuse of texting and grades with all students.  With this specific topic I could have used many articles and facts to show whether texting was a positive or a negative thing and how it affected grades.  Finally I came around to pick the topic of the privacy of texting and other social media outlets.  I felt that this topic was perfect for the article because a main part focuses on how people tend to hide their phones during meetings, or even will leave an important event to head to the bathroom so that they can text conspicuously.  Along with this topic come the texting scandals that have happened in the past with inappropriate pictures to others.  Many photos become leaked and they are sent through text messaging, and there was even an app created, SnapChat that has caused some controversy among many people.  To add social media to this topic it was very easy because many of the texting scandals that had to do with sending inappropriate pictures ended up online for everyone to see.  

            One source that backs up my topic is an article called “Sexting Among Undergraduate Students” which speaks about how a popular act now a days has become sending inappropriate pictures otherwise known as “nudes” to other people in your phone address book.  This idea that people can send a picture of themselves showing off body parts through a phone to someone else is a direct sign on privacy through texting.  It of course is extremely common among the younger generation, but the older generation does in fact partake with this form of texting as well.  The percentages happened to be lower in the year 2008 but that is because the poll was taken prior to the addition of iPhones or any phones that can send pictures extremely easily, and even the knew popular app called SnapChat.  One poll that was taken recently was a poll at Temple University in the year 2012, and people who tend to “sext” are involved heavily with another person, usually it is people who are in a relationship.  Sexting does not directly correlate with age, because people in the younger generation have said that they have never partaken in any form of sending nudity through a text, however there is a relationship between sexting and relationships.  When speaking to adults and even young teens who are dating, many couples admitted to sexting with their significant other, saying that there were pictures sent while they were dating someone, or they’ve sent pictures to the person they are currently involved with.  Another source that helped to back up my argument was the Brett Favre scandal that broke out in 2010 (ABC News).  Favre was sending nude text messages to a sideline and former playboy model, Jenn Sterger.  Eventually the story broke out, proving my point that there truly is not privacy once you press the send button.  Favre’s decision to send Sterger photos of him and leave her voicemails as well was a decision that he made that shows how quickly news can move, and that putting something out there that you may think is private really is not.  This ties in with my third source that is a story about NFL running back Arian Foster who tweeted a picture of and MRI that he received which showed that his hamstring was injured (ESPN).  This idea is different from the “sexting”

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but has the same idea that putting something up for people to see is not always a good idea.  In this situation he has now shown everyone who follows him on twitter what his injury is, how severe it is, and where exactly he is injured.  Now for an NFL running back he is getting tackled every single play, even if his hamstring is fully healed when he plays against other teams they are going to target this injury because they know exactly where it is.  Once again going back to pressing the send button, Foster how has given direct information to his opponents, giving his competition the upper hand and leverage when he plays and competes against them.  This then ties into my fourth source that is a video (YouTube) of Herm Edwards, a former NFL coach, speaking to the rookies about pressing the send button on twitter.  One of Edwards statements was “…cause here’s the problem when you press it you can’t take it back men it’s out there, and if it’s really good one of those juicy ones guess what da-na-na-da-na-na we got it!”  He is referring to ESPN, who he now works for, and is exclaiming to the players that it’s better to just not press send at all, and that all it is going to do is hurt them because ESPN will broadcast it out to everyone.  My last source (Tweeting, Texting, and Facebook) ties together all of my other sources because it speaks about how drama occurred over a twitter page (Perez, 6).  The twitter page was created to outcast specific girls and used nasty language to downgrade the girls that it targeted.  Of course this then got students talking to one another, mostly through text because it is more private then to speak out loud at school about it, and the issue grew over the Internet and through text.  This last source helps to tie my argument together because it shows how once something is sent or created it cannot be taken back, it is in the open and it can affect many people.   

The stance that I plan to take with this essay is that the privacy of texting and social media can only go so far.  If you send an inappropriate picture of yourself you no longer have access to this picture.  Now it is in the hands of someone else, therefore the idea that you send a picture to someone of yourself because at that moment in time you might want that person to have it and to see it, but in a few days, months, years, that picture may still be there and you of course would not want anyone else to see it because it was only meant for that specific person unless you have sent one out to many other people.  Also the idea that you must read over everything before you press the send button, the idea that once you hit send it isn’t coming back and once again someone has access to your words now and can show other people what you have sent them and said to them.  Once something is sent out through text, twitter, Facebook, any form of social media, it can be duplicated, copied, anything you name it.  It has now become property of anyone that is associated with you, or anyone on the Internet for that matter if it is posted through social media.  In this case there is no way out of what you did there is concrete hardcore proof of what you sent and there is no returning from that situation.  I plan to use specific examples to show where I stand on the topic of the privacy of texting and social media.  By using specific examples like Brett Favre and the Herm Edwards speech, I will be able to prove my point that the privacy of texting and social media is not as private as many people might think it is.

            The source that best helps me prove my stance is the last one that speaks about the young girls who were being directly harassed over twitter.  This source helps to pull all of my other sources together, but also gives my audience something to relate to.  It includes texting, twitter, and Facebook.  Almost every generation uses one of the three with some using two out of three or even all three.  This source proves that whatever is put out on social media is out there for good.  The twitter pages was not popular until the nasty tweets about the girls came out, making

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a lot of people within the school, and even outside of the school follow it because of the drama that came with the tweets.  This idea proves my stance that social media and texting are not as private of a medium that people may think it is.  Don’t press the send button, re-read everything before pressing the send button, if there is slight chance that something will offend someone or hurt someone then don’t press the send button.  The send button is not a button that anyone wants to take lightly because it will come back to haunt you in the end.

                                                                                Works Cited

Samimi, Pouria, and Kevin G. Alderson. "Sexting Among Undergraduate Students." Computers In Human Behavior 31.(2014): 230-241. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Allen, Kathleen P. "Tweeting, Texting, And Facebook Postings: Stirring The Pot With Social Media To Make Drama - Case Study And Participant Observation." Qualitative Report 19.2 (2014): 1-24. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.

Services, ESPN.com News. "Arian Foster Posts MRI photo." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 01 Sept. 2011. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.

Creed, Ryan. "Jenn Sterger Interview: Brett Favre Scandal Turned Life 'Upside Down'" ABC News. ABC News Network, 10 Apr. 2011. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.

Edwards, Herm. “The Business of Football: Rookie Edition” NFLPA’s Rookie Symposium. 29 June 2011

Tamir, Diana and Jason Mitchell. “Disclosing Information About the Self is Intrinsically   Rewarding.” PNAS 109.21 (2012): 8038-8043. PNAS. Web. 3/2/14.

            This source is a study from the psychology department at the University of Harvard. What this study finds is that we actually reward ourselves (through the release of chemicals) for expressing our thoughts and feelings to others. We often choose to disclose about ourselves more than we choose to disclose about other information, and doing so might actually yield a higher reward response. It is believed that roughly 30-40% of our communication efforts are put solely into informing others of our own subjective experiences.

  Trottier, Daniel. Social Media as Surveillance. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012. Print.

            This book by Daniel Trottier takes a look more closely at social media specifically, and the surveillance methods that are associated with them. Daniel delves into the world of social media as dwelling places where people spend way too much time and devote way to much energy. In a world where privacy is essentially eliminated online, worlds can unknowingly collide, bringing everyone in your life together, whether you like it or not.  Daniel explores the consequences of living in our newfound social media “dwellings” and the difficulties we all face when worlds collide, i.e. pictures from last nights party end up on a social media site, making them visible to everyone in your workplace, including your boss. Oops!

  Remington, Alex. "Social Selection and Peer Influence in an Online social network." Journalists Resource RSS. Harvard Kennedy School, 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

  My second article that I found is called Social selection and peer influence in an online social network and this article talks about how we pick our friends and stay connected with them online. Basically the article said that we pick our friends based on our social standing and our interests. The example that I used was that if I was into video games than I would generally have a group of friends that love video games as well. Online it is easier for us to have friends outside our interest group, because we don’t have to have any face-to-face social interaction, so it is easier to hide our true selves.

            I could use this article because it provides interesting insight into where our Facebook friends are actually coming from. This information is useful because it helps to point out the differences between our online selves and friends we have, and our actual selves and friends that we have.

Weigel, Margaret. "Why Most Facebook Users Get More than They give." Journalists Resource RSS. Harvard Kennedy School, 29 Feb. 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.

              The first article that I chose called Why most Facebook users get more than they give was all about how Facebook is still used, and the popularity of Facebook. It talks about users called power users who ‘like’ and post things on Facebook daily and how they are growing in number. The article goes on to list bullets on studies that have been done on the use of Facebook and how it is changing and evolving.

            If I wanted to use this article in my paper I would take it as the stand of good things that Facebook is doing for our society. It is also helpful because it has a lot of concrete information like for example the fact that it talks about all of those studies shows me that I can use that information in my paper. It also provides insight into the actual Facebook user, which is very helpful.

  Jones, Haley. “Social Media’s Affect on Human Interaction.” HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory). 7 June 2013. Article. 3 March 2014.

Humphrys, David. “I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language.” The Daily Mail. 24 Sept. 2007. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

In his article I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language, David Humphrys rants about the how texting is “pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary.” He starts off by talking about the recent changes made to his beloved Oxford English Dictionary as part of the latest revision, namely removing the hyphen from some 16,000 words. This, he deems, is nothing more than the OED falling victim to fashion to the SMS vandals who defend their practice through ridiculing non-adapters, pointing out it saves money, and arguing that language changes. Humphrys argues we must not give in to this plague of emotions, abbreviations, and ambiguity and urges influential authoritative references such as the OED to do the same; lest our language be taken over by text-speak the same way email conquered the practice of writing letters.

Myhra, John. “Negative Effects Of Texting In The Classroom.” Tech Nation. WikiDot, 3 Dec. 2010. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

It is very clear from Negative Effects Of Texting In The Classroom that John Myhra is not a fan of texting. His main gripe is the effect that today’s over-use of texting has had on students’ writing; making them unable to separate formal and informal english. He says the mistakes caused by texting are often unintentional — lack of critical analysis and shorter sentences to name a few — but overall causes punctuation to suffer, capital letters to shrink, and spelling to be squashed. While Myhra agrees with proponents of texting who say that it increases the amount of writing students are doing, he argues that it is writing of little to no depth filled with terrible grammar and countless abbreviations.

Trubek, Anne. "Txting 2 Lrn." Instructor 121.5 (2012): 49-51. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.

In her educational pamphlet Txting 2 Lrn, Anne Trubek discusses the benefits of texting related to education and how they can be embraced in the classroom. She starts by stating that kids today spend a lot of time texting (girls more than boys), sending an average of about 3,400 texts per month. Because of this, texting has revolutionized the way kids today communicate, and in the eyes of many, is decreasing the language skills of our young generation. Trubek adamantly points out that such views are opinion and do not listen to the countless studies show that texting increase literacy and improve spelling. She then goes on to list the several different texting facts such as: texting creates strong readers and writers, texting improves phonology, text language has historical ties, and texting does not distract students. To close, Trubek suggests various ways for teachers to embrace this new communication technology in the classroom such as: getting immediate feedback, teaching note taking shorthand, or studying historical characters by making them communicate through this new medium. 

Zurhellen, Sarah. "“A Misnomer of Sizeable Proportions”: SMS and Oral Tradition." Oral Tradition 26.2 (2011). Project MUSE. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.

In “A Misnomer of Sizeable Proportions”: SMS and Oral Tradition, Sarah Zurhellen first starts by discussing how texting as a medium of communication is encoring literary schools, bridging the gap between oral and written cultures. She then dives into the more technical side of the functional yet symbolic text-language, referencing the six non-standard language developments of texting and the 3 social maxims. After giving the reader a brief background of SMS, she gets back to the relationship between texting and oral communication writing: “text messaging utilizes components of oral thought, or patterns of thinking related to orality, rather than conversation per se”. To close, Zurhellen considers the intimacy of texting compared to online chat and how learning to text is more intuitive than analytical.

Turner, Kristen Hawley. “Flipping the Switch: Code-Switching from Text Speak to Standard English.” The English Journal , Vol. 98, No. 5 (May, 2009) , pp. 60-65.

Sultan, Abdullah J. "Addiction to Mobile Text Messaging Applications Is Nothing to “lol” about." The Social Science Journal 51 (2013): 57-69. General OneFile. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

The purpose of this article is threefold: It aims to describe messaging behaviors, look at personality traits and the potential influences of messaging, and to “identify a potential driver of the excessive use of these applications.” It focuses specifically on the apps Blackberry Messenger and WhatsApp, which send messages over the Internet, thus reducing fees. Among other topics, it discusses the trends among introverted and extroverted people and the addiction to mobile messaging.

Harrison, Marissa A., and Angela L. Gilmore. "U Txt WHEN? College Students’ Social Contexts of Text Messaging." The Social Science Journal 49 (2012): 513-18. General OneFile. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

This article aims to look at the social situations associated with texting. It discusses a survey in which 102 college students were asked between 2009-2010 about their communication methods. It provides the data collected, with percentages broken down into five categories: romance, staying connected, escaping the present, social breaches, maleficence, and sexting. This shows when people text, and then determines how it relates to societal norms and sociability.

Junco, Reynol. "In-class multitasking and academic performance.” Computers in Human Behavior 28 (2012): 2236-2243. Science Direct. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

This article talks about multitasking in an academic setting. It specifically deals with the use of cell phones among college student, but it also covers other uses of technology that college students use on a daily basis (including social networks and computers). The article takes a look at how multitasking affects GPAs.

Pierce, Tamyra. “Social anxiety and technology: Face-to-face communication versus technological communication among teens.” Computers in Human Behavior 25 (2009): 1367–1372. Science Direct. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

This article takes a look at social anxieties and shyness and how technology can play a part. It discusses the positive sides, such as giving a feeling of belonging to shy people, and it discusses the problems, in the sense that technology can be used to (attempt to) replace face-to-face contact. This particularly survey deals with 280 students from high schools, with students ranging in age from 14 to 20 (that’s not a typo). Results of this study show that females, who tend to be more anxious than males, use technology more for communication purposes than males.

Samoglou, Emmanual. “Do you have a tweeting disorder?” Canadian Business 84.16 (2011): 84. General OneFile. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Giang, Vivian. 5 Rules of Texting Etiquette Every Professional Needs to Know. Business Insider, 09/20/2013. Web. 03/05/2014.

       This article shows society rules that revolve around texting. Texting is becoming a main form of communication and there are rules that go along with it. The first rule is to be cautious when using abbreviations.  The second rule is to be aware of your tone. While texting someone you may think you are sounding nice meanwhile the recipient thinks the message was hurtful. The third rule is to never send bad news over text messages. This is not a good idea and can start conflicts with who ever you are texting. The fourth rule is don’t change meeting times via text messaging. People don’t always check their phone every minute of the day so they may not receive the message on time. The fifth rule is to always double check your message when using the voice-to-text feature. This advanced tool will often mistype a message and can send the wrong messages to people. 

      This is helpful because it shows people what not to do. People can learn how to be proper when composing a text message.  This can help me in my research because it can help emphasis Crystal’s main ideas.

May, Mickayla. “Texting has many advantages in modern age.” Otago Daily Times 11 September 2013, n. pag. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.

        This article shows the positive outlook towards texting. It focuses on text messaging being more efficient and less complicated for people. On the other hand, it also talks about negative effects of texting. These include causing harm to individuals by texting mean messages back and forth.

       This can be helpful because I want to show how texting can also be negative. David Crystal only talk about positive effects of texting so incorporating negative effects can be useful.

  Powell, D., and M. Dixon. “Does SMS Text Messaging Help Or Harm Adults’ Knowledge Of Standard Spelling?.” Journal of Computer Assisten Learning 27.1 (2011): 58-66 ERIC. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.

        In this article results were shown referring to children and adults being introduced to misspellings and texims. This study explained how the children that were given cell phones earlier were able to comprehend the language faster. Cell phones symbolize a sense of freedom and having a cell phone can make people express what they want when they want too. This article also talks about how children and adults retain different aspects of the language. When both adults and children were exposed to misspellings, the adults were more impacted than the children were. This study effected adults more than children. Lastly, being exposed to the textisms increased the spelling in adults.

        This can be helpful because it shows how texting really affects adults. Adults have adapted to textism and have become better at spelling.

Sweeny, Sheelah M. "Writing For The Instant Messaging And Text Messaging Generation: Using New Literacies To Support Writing Instruction." Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 54.2 (2010): 121-130. Literary Reference Center. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

        This article argues the knowledge of new literacies from information and communication technology. It also discusses how using information and communication to teach writing and communication to students can benefit them. It discusses how there is a positive correlation between new technology and texting. Lastly, the article shows how important it is to be informed with what is happening around us and how everything changes at a rapid pace.

        This can be very useful because it talks about how new technology is playing a big part in our lives. In David Crystal’s article “2b or Not 2b”, he discusses how new technology is taking over and how people need to adapt. Crystal’s main point is how people may not like texting but this form of communication isn’t going to be extinct any time soon. This is also displayed many times throughout the paper, "Writing For The Instant Messaging And Text Messaging Generation: Using New Literacies To Support Writing Instruction." Both of these articles can help me complete my research and support my underlying message.

Wood, C., et al. "The Effect Of Text Messaging On 9- And 10-Year-Old Children's Reading, Spelling And Phonological Processing Skills." Journal Of Computer Assisted Learning 27.1 (2011): 28-36. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. 

       This paper talks about a study that has been done to determine the correlation between text messaging and the literacy skills of young children. Children who never had a phone were randomly placed in either the intervention group or control condition group. Every child was tested before and after the experiment on their ability to read, spell and phonological awareness. The children in the intervention group were handed a phone that is designed for text messaging only. They were required to keep the phone for about 10 weeks. Studies showed that there was no significant differences between the two groups of children based on their literacy for that portion of time. Although the children in the texting group displayed the use of text abbreviations which was positively related to improving literacy skills. Overall, these results prove that text messaging does not poorly affect the growth of literacy skills within this age group. The use of abbreviations when texting is positively related to improvement in literacy skills, especially spelling. 

Lepp, Andrew, Jacob E. Barkley, and Aryn C. Karpinski. "The Relationship Between Cell Phone Use, Academic Performance, Anxiety, And Satisfaction With Life In College Students." Computers In Human Behavior 31.(2014): 343-350. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

              The first source speaks about how there is a direct negative relationship between cell phone use and academic performance among students.  The idea of being able to multi-task creates a problem for students because phones cause multi-tasking alone, therefore creating a problem when studying or doing schoolwork.  Many students alone check their phones for Facebook and twitter, as well as text messages on the regular while doing work, therefore it creates a span of time where students lose concentration on their work and focus more on their phones.  The constant checking of a phone creates a direct relationship to a lower GPA for most college students. 

            I would be able to use this for my work because my topic is about texting, and how some people spend a lot of time on their phones.  One of the groups that I specifically targeted in my paper was kid’s that are in school who have figured out how to text during class.  Now if texting and checking a cellular device not in class while doing homework results in lower grades, then of course checking your phone inside a classroom while a teacher is teaching will cause lower grades.  This is a perfect fit for my work because it backs up the ideas that I have about texting during class or a meeting can cause problems for people. 

            Sultan, Abdullah J. "Addiction To Mobile Text Messaging Applications Is Nothing To “Lol” About." Social Science Journal 51.1 (2014): 57-69. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

  My second source is about apps and BBM’s and how they are affecting younger generations, because they have the ability to text from multiple sources such as iPads, or iPods that their parents allow them to use, or that young kids even own.  There is surely an addiction to uses of texting and this article provides the evidence to back it up as there is research from the early 2000’s to now that shows how texting and technology has developed and has become addicting to younger generations.

            This article will help me to back up my work because my work has to do with texting and how it has developed over time.  Also I can talk about how younger kids are getting more involved with texting and how with the increase in technology usage, younger kids get to text at an even younger age.  This allows me to speak about how I wasn’t able to really text until I received my phone, but now kids can text with these new apps that are available.   

      Samimi, Pouria, and Kevin G. Alderson. "Sexting Among Undergraduate Students." Computers In Human Behavior 31.(2014): 230-241. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

              My third source is about how “sexting” has become a popular act for teens and even adults.  The act of sexting continues to increase, and the percentages come from the year 2008, before iPhones and Snapchat.  A recent poll was taken in the year 2012 at Temple and people who partake in “sexting” mostly in a relationship or dating someone.  Sexting does not directly correlate with ages, but it does with relationships, the percentages increase when talking to kids or adults that are in relationships or are dating. 

            This source helps with my work because I speak about how texting is extremely private recently, and many people don’t want other to read their texts or see the pictures that they receive.  This tells the story perfectly because sexting is supposed to be something that others do not see.  It is meant for only one persons eyes according to the article. 

  Wood, Clare, et al. "Grammatical Understanding, Literacy And Text Messaging In School Children And Undergraduate Students: A Concurrent Analysis." Computers & Education 70.(2014): 281-290. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

              My fourth source speaks about how people are concerned about how the shortening of words can cause students to do poorly in class.  It speaks about how older people don’t have a problem because they were not exposed to texting at a young age like my generation.  Since texting is related to fundamental literacy skills it can hurt those who are trying to learn to read and write at a higher level, when studying for the SAT and ACT.

            This helps my work because it shows another side to how texting can affect scores.  How abbreviating words can cause a decline in learning skills.  I speak about this in my work and how the abbreviating of words because abbreviating has been around for quite some time does not change scores.  But it gives another side to my work.

  Perry, Raymond C.W., et al. "Associations Among Text Messaging, Academic Performance, And Sexual Behaviors Of Adolescents." Journal Of School Health 84.1 (2014): 33-39. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

UK SMS Volumes Decline For First Time

For the first time since text messaging was invented the United Kingdom saw a decrease in the amount of SMS messages sent. However, the amount of texting did not drop, just the amount of traditional text messages dropped. This is because the new smartphones no longer use the traditional SMS messages (unless they are sending texts to non-smartphones,) but rather they use web messaging. An example of this web messaging is the iMessage that all iPhones use. With this change in messaging also comes a change in paying for messaging. Cellular providers are now providing free text messaging, but they are trying to push data charges. This means that gone are the days of worrying about abbreviating words to make sure you did not overuse your texting plan.

“UK SMS Volumes Decline For First Time.” Total Telecom Online. 13 Jan. 2014. Gale Cengage Learning. Web. 2 Mar. 2014

Global Market Development

The first portable telephones were made available to the public in 1991. However, it wasn’t until 1993 that SMS messaging was added on to cellphones. There were two major problems that kept SMS from being on the first cellphones: screen size and how to charge for it. The pioneers of the cell phone industry that helped launch SMS messaging were Nokia, Siemens, Orbitel, and Ericsson. The next problem that these providers had to deal with was sending messages internationally. These problems seem like things of the past as cellphones have not only evolved from being to send texts internationally, but now they can video chat internationally.

Hillebrand, Friedhelm. “Global Market Development.” Short Message Service (SMS): The Creation of Personal Global Texting. Hoboken: Wiley, 2010. 125-130. Web. 2 Mar. 2014

Owners Tweet for Social-Media Savy Talent

We are now living in a fast paced world. If you are unable to use or comprehend the technology that surrounds us then you will find yourself in the slow lane while the rest of the world whips by you. We have gone from a world that was only able to use phones to call people to a world that uses phones to text, video chat, tweet, Snapchat, and pretty much anything that you can think of. Employers are beginning to notice this ever-changing social trend and are taking action to keep up. Corporations are no longer just looking for people that are tech savy they are now using social networks to recruit employees. Social networks are everywhere and companies are able to cash in on the cheap costs of advertising to land new hires.

Zimmerman, Eilene. “Owners Tweet for Social-Media Savy Talent; Firms Turn to Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr to Save on Recruting Costs.” Crain’s New York Business. 17 Feb. 2014. Gale Infotrac Web. 4 Mar. 2014

Text Messaging and Teenagers

Teenagers have mainly used text messaging as it has become the easiest and most popular way for people to communicate. A recent study by the University of Wisconsin discovered that teenagers are most likely to use texting to communicate with a peer or adult over any form of technological communication. This study found that teenagers are most likely to use text messaging because the ease and speed that is associated with texting. The study also found that text messaging has taken away social interactions from teenagers. Most teenagers would prefer to text someone instead of actually talk to them. The report found that teenagers prefer to hide behind screens instead of having physical interactions with others.

Porath, Suzanne. “Text Messaging and Teenagers: A Review of the Literature” Journal of the Research Center for Education. 7:2 (2011): 86-98. GaleNet. Web. 4 Mar. 2014

Students’ Use of Text-Messaging and Their Learning Experience

The amount of texts that teenagers send and receive has risen every year since SMS messaging first hit the market. This study done by a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso found that texting is not as bad for teenagers learning as most adults assume it is. The study found that teenagers do text excessively and they have even been found to text in class, but texting is not always detrimental to the students’ learning.  In fact texting can actually help a students learning. The study supports Crystal’s idea that texting is beneficial to our language and can open new frontiers for literature. The study shows that texting has created a new “language” for teenagers that they can only understand if they truly grasp the normal language.