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kaholcom

ORLANDO, Fla.: Professor says teens' social media lingo hurts writing skills | Technolo... - 0 views

www.newsobserver.com/...r-says-teens-social-media.html

Literacy Skills Decline

shared by kaholcom on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • “I feel texting is easier because I’m not always at a place where I can talk on the phone,” Shelby said. “My friends and I use some abbreviations like ‘LOL’ (laughing out loud), but just in texts. I’m sure it’s not taking a toll on our academic writing.”
  • But some writing advocates say Twitter’s frugal word structure, Facebook’s short-post syntax and acronym-filled text messages are degrading writing skills.
  • “Just the other day, I asked my students to write four lines of dialogue they had over the weekend,” said Terry Thaxton, a University of Central Florida English professor who runs the summer writing camp Shelby attended earlier this month. “Three of them reached for their phones to read their text messages. They said they couldn’t remember any face-to-face conversations.”
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  • Thaxton enjoys how students use social media to share their stories among friends but thinks their writing skills have suffered in the exchange of ideas.
  • “Social media takes out all the imaginative threads, descriptions and interesting parts of a language,” she said. “I find that troubling.”
  • A report published in 2010 by Clarion University shows social media and text messages are “consistently associated with the use of particularly informal written communication techniques, along with formatting problems, nonstandard orthography, and grammatical errors.”
  • overcome challenges Fowler: Charlotte Hornets haven’t gotten better since free agency began Cary may land 1,200 jobs –
  • “For the most part, this type of writing is more like an informal spoken language in written, unedited format,” Robertshaw said. “People are focusing more on content and catching the drift of what was written and not how it looks, especially if you’re sending it quickly on an iPhone or iPad before reviewing it.”
  • “Social media has certainly brought attention to the poor and declining writing, communication and critical-thinking skills that teachers have seen for a long time,” she said.
  • kaholcom on 15 Jul 14
     
    Article about declining literacy because of technology
kaholcom

Teachers say digital technology helps and hurts student writing | Minnesota Public Radi... - 1 views

www.mprnews.org/...students-and-digital-writing

Literacy Skills Decline

shared by kaholcom on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • But what's not so good is the informal style and sloppiness of texting and social media that's finding its way into students' assignments.
  • Some Minnesota teachers have already figured out that they have to tell students to keep texting-speak out of their work.
  • But Schwab understands how other students slip up. "I don't even know if they realize it when they're writing," she said. "But it's just such a part of their language that they just write it."
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  • "Some of that informal style and language does creep into [students'] formal writing," she said, "so that's something that [teachers] have to address with their students."
  • Most teachers   68 percent   say use of the Internet and mobile technology leads students to take shortcuts in their writing.
  • "I think they have sloppy habits of mind, and I think that the Internet feeds into that," she said.
  • But Cornell has noticed one big change in how students write: "The structuring of particularly longer papers is more difficult for current students." The Pew Center's survey of teachers found a few other concerns. Digital technology has made students more impatient with the writing process, and it's also made plagiarism more prevalent.
  • kaholcom on 15 Jul 14
     
    How "tech" talk creeps into formal work
sylvyapaladino

What are literacy skills? | Thoughtful Learning: Curriculum for 21st Century Skills, In... - 0 views

www.thoughtfullearning.com/...what-are-literacy-skills

Literacy

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Literacy skills help students gain knowledge through reading as well as using media and technology. These skills also help students create knowledge through writing as well as developing media and technology.
  • Information literacy involves traditional skills such as reading, researching, and writing; but new ways to read and write have also introduced new skills: Consuming information: The current excess of information requires students to gain new skills in handling it. When most information came through official publications like books, newspapers, magazines, and television shows, students encountered data that had been prepared by professionals. Now, much information is prepared by amateurs. Some of that work is reliable, but much is not. Students must take on the role of the editor, checking and cross-checking information, watching for signs of bias, datedness, and errors. Students need to look at all information as the product of a communication situation, with a sender, subject, purpose, medium, receiver, and context. Producing information: In the past, students were mostly consumers of information. When they produced information, it was largely for a single reader—the teacher—and was produced for a grade. It was therefore not an authentic communication situation, and students felt that writing was a purely academic activity. Now writing is one of the main ways students communicate. It has real-world applications and consequences. Students need to understand that what they write can do great good or great harm in the real world, and that how they write determines how powerful their words are. Students need to take on the role of professional writers, learning to be effective and ethical producers of information.
  • Media literacy involves understanding the many ways that information is produced and distributed. The forms of media have exploded in the last decade and new media arrive every day:
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  • Students' use of media has far outstripped educational use, and students will continue to adopt new media long before teachers can create curricula about it. It is no longer enough to teach students how books, periodicals, and TV shows work. Students need to learn how to critically analyze and evaluate messages coming to them through any medium
  • As with information literacy, the key is to recognize the elements of the communication situation—sender, message (subject and purpose), medium, receiver, and context. These elements are constant regardless of the medium used. By broadening the student's perspective to see all media as part of a larger communication situation, we can equip students to effectively receive and send information in any medium. Students must learn to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each medium and to analyze each message they receive and send.
  • We are living through a technological revolution, with huge changes taking place over brief spans of time. A decade ago, Facebook didn't exist, but now many people could not live without it. The average cellphone is now more powerful than computers from several years ago. We are surrounded by technology, and most of it performs multiple functions. In Growing Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World, Don Tapscott outlines the following eight expectations that students have of technology. Freedom to express their views, personalities, and identities Ability to customize and personalize technology to their own tastes Ability to dig deeper, finding whatever information they want Honesty in interactions with others and with organizations Fun to be part of learning, work, and socialization as well as entertainment Connecting to others and collaborating in everything Speed and responsiveness in communication and searching for answers Innovation and change, not settling for familiar technologies but seeking and using what is new and better
kaholcom

Education World: Does Texting Harm Students' Writing Skills? - 1 views

www.educationworld.com/..._impacts_student-writing.shtml

Literacy Skills Decline

shared by kaholcom on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The explosion of social media has completely changed the way we communicate with each other.
  • While this communications boom has been praised for its educational benefits, some argue that a negative side effect is beginning to take hold in our classrooms. Cyber slang is suspected of damaging students’ writing acumen.
  • Because so many digital media limit the number of characters an author can use at a time, students are becoming more creative to get the most out of their limited space.
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  • The Times Daily newspaper cites a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, "Writing, Technology and Teens," which found that the cell phone text-based abbreviated communications teens use are showing up in more formal writing.
  • “I think it makes sense for these social conversations to be lightweight or light-hearted in terms of the syntax,” said President of Dictionary.com Shravan Goli. “But ultimately, in the world of business and in the world they will live in, in terms of their jobs and professional lives, students will need good, solid reading and writing skills. I’m a little worried about where we are in America with literacy levels dropping. Are these [electronic devices] helping us, or making it worse? I think they may be going the other way and making it worse.”
  • A public Facebook page entitled “If you think the rules at UnionCounty High School are ridiculous,” dealing with school policies in Union, S.C. offers these examples: “the new policy on dress code they handed out last week is our last chance 2 keep us out of uniforms. the new super intendant as u all know is from spartanburg is using the saturday school crap 2 take a note on how many offenses we have & will use it 2 make her decision. so we ned 2 stop breaking the dress code or we might have 2 really fight uniforms next year.” “dont worry abt us wearing uniforms nxt year. our parents wont buy them & the district cant even give us the first set cuz our parents pay the taxes & we cant afford them. so get ur parents opinion & make them disagress with uniforms!”
  • kaholcom on 15 Jul 14
     
    examples of how technology is hurting a student's literacy skills
sgbrudna

The 4 Negative Side Effects Of Technology - Edudemic - 3 views

www.edudemic.com/ive-side-effects-of-technology

negative effects writing Debate reading skills Decline TV texting communication Technology

shared by sgbrudna on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Let’s take a look at the top 4 ways that overuse of technology has influenced our children in an adverse manner:
  • 1. Elevated Exasperation These days, children indulge themselves in internet, games or texting. These activities have affected their psyche negatively, consequently leading to increased frustration. Now they get frustrated whenever they are asked to do anything while playing games or using internet. For instance, when their parents ask them to take the trash out, they get furious instantly. This behavior has shattered many parent-children relationships.
  • 2. Deteriorated Patience Patience is a very precious virtue and its scarcity could deteriorate a person’s Will. Determination is a necessity that comes with patience and without it no individual can survive the hardships of life. According to studies, tolerance in children is vanishing quite increasingly due to the improper use of technology. For example, children get frustrated quickly when they surf internet and the page they want to view takes time to load.
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  • 3. Declining Writing Skills Due to the excessive usage of online chatting and shortcuts, the writing skills of today’s young generation have declined quite tremendously. These days, children are relying more and more on digital communication that they have totally forgot about improving their writing skills. They don’t know the spelling of different words, how to use grammar properly or how to do cursive writing.
  • 4. Lack of Physical Interactivity No one can deny the fact that the advancement of technology has produced a completely unique method of interaction and communication. Now, more and more people are interacting with others through different platforms like apps, role-playing online games, social networks, etc. This advancement has hampered the physical interaction skills of many children. Due to that they don’t know how to interact with others when they meet them in-person or what gesture they should carry.
  • Alice Martin is a professional essay writer from UK, works on AssignmentValley’s education blog. She became a writer after completing her college and then established her career in the field of education and research.
  • bgfeltner on 15 Jul 14
     
    "The rapid revolution in technology affected our lifestyle drastically and led us to believe that our lives have changed for the better. Now communication with our distant friends or relatives, buying branded products or goods on-the-go and conducting business meeting is possible with just a single click."
sylvyapaladino

Pros and Cons of Technology in the Classroom and Where I Stand | Rachel Lynne's Blog - 0 views

racdab2819.wordpress.com/...he-classroom-and-where-i-stand

Negative Literacy Debate

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • , I will share some of the findings of my group and explain how they impacted me and can impact all educators.
  • Negative Effects: Spell-check: Through our research we discovered that many students rely too heavily on spellcheck to correct their spelling, and as a result, have poor spelling skills.  In the following video, a high school girl describes her spelling problems from dependency on spellcheck.  It also addressed the problems that arise from text speak.
  • Other negative effects of technology on learning: -Technology makes it easier to cheat and plagarize -Decrease in critical thinking -Decrease in analysis skills -Decrease in imagination -Don’t process as much during class, easily distracted
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  • Are Digital Media Changing Language? http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/mar09/vol66/num06/Are_Digital_Media_Changing_Language¢.aspx Is Technology Producing a Decline in Critical Thinking and Analysis? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090128092341.htm
  • Sparknotes and other such sources: When I was in high school, most of my peers never read the novels assigned in our classes because they could easily and quickly read a plot summary, character analysis, and theme, symbol, and motif summary on Sparknotes.  With this site and others like it so easily available, we can’t be surprised when kids don’t read books!  
  • This technology definitely has the potential to have a negative impact on student’s reading, writing, and critical thinking.
  • One of the issues we discovered is the negative effect texting and instant-message language has on student’s writing capabilities.  Our research shows that acronyms and abbreviations are slipping into student’s writing.  Rather than using formal English when writing papers, many students use digital language, which includes things like: -lower case ‘i’ rather than uppercase ‘I’ -b/c for because -idk for i don’t know -recurrent grammar issues
kaholcom

School of Education at Johns Hopkins University-Instant Messaging: Friend or Foe of Stu... - 1 views

education.jhu.edu/...instant-messaging

Literacy Skills Decline

shared by kaholcom on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • There are those who see the use of so-called "Internet English" as a breakdown of the English language – according to a recent newspaper article, "Some teachers see the creeping abbreviations as part of a continuing assault of technology on formal written English" (Lee, 2002).
  • Several articles indicate that students who use messaging on a frequent basis often use bad grammar, poor punctuation, and improper abbreviations in academic writing. According to Lee (2002), "teachers say that papers are being written with shortened words, improper capitalization and punctuation, and characters like &, $ and @. " However, something that is not always considered is that these mistakes are often unintentional – when students use IM frequently, they reach a saturation point where they no longer notice the IM lingo because they are so used to seeing it. Montana Hodgen, a 16-year old high school student in Montclair, New Jersey, "was so accustomed to instant-messaging abbreviations that she often read right past them" (Lee, 2002). As she puts it, "I was so used to reading what my friends wrote to me on Instant Messenger that I didn't even realize that there was something wrong," she said. She said her ability to separate formal and informal English declined the more she used instant messages" (Lee, 2002).
  • This was also a problem for Carl Sharp, whose 15-year old son's summer job application read "i want 2 b a counselor because i love 2 work with kids" (Friess, 2003),
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  • English instructor Cindy Glover, who – while teaching undergraduate freshman composition in 2002 – "spent a lot of time unteaching Internet-speak. 'My students were trying to communicate fairly academic, scholarly thoughts, but some of them didn't seem to know it's "y-o-u," not "u"'" (Freiss, 2003.)
  • Students have trouble seeing the distinction between formal and informal writing, and consequently use informal IM abbreviations and lingo in more formal writing situations (Brown-Owens, Eason, & Lader, 2003, p.6.)
sylvyapaladino

Books Without Batteries:The Negative Impacts of Technology - 0 views

www.publishersweekly.com/...ive-impacts-of-technology.html

Negative Literacy Debate

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • In The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (Norton, 2010), Nicholas Carr notes that after years of digital addiction, his friends can't read in depth anymore. Their very brains are changing, physically. They are becoming "chronic scatterbrains... even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb."
  • Carr continues: "For the last five centuries, ever since Gutenberg made reading a popular pursuit, the linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science, and society. As supple as it is subtle, it's been the imaginative mind of the Renaissance, the rational mind of the Enlightenment, the inventive mind of the Industrial Revolution, even the subversive mind on Modernism. It may soon be yesterday's mind."
  • Because our brains can no longer think beyond a tweet, we can't write well. And we can't read well either. The idea of reading—let alone writing—War and Peace, Bleak House, or Absalom, Absalom! is fading into an impossible dream.
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  • Here's what an e-reader is: a battery-operated slab, about a pound, one-half inch thick, perhaps with an aluminum border, rubberized back, plastic, metal, silicon, a bit of gold, plus rare metals such as columbite-tantalite (Google it) ripped from the earth, often in war-torn Africa. To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to refine the minerals and produce the battery and printed writing. The production of other e-reading devices such as cellphones, iPads, and whatever new gizmo will pop up in the years ahead is similar. "The adverse health impacts [on the general public] from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book," says the Times.
  • Then you figure that the 100 million e-readers will be outmoded in short order, to be replaced by 100 million new and improved devices in the years ahead that will likewise be replaced by new models ad infinitum, and you realize an environmental disaster is at hand. We will have lost a chunk of our planet as we lose our minds to the digital juggernaut.
  • Here's what it takes to make a book, which, if it is any good, will be shared by many readers and preserved and appreciated in personal, public, and university libraries that survive the gigantic digital book burning: recycled paper, a dash of minerals, and two gallons of water. Batteries not necessary. If trees are harvested, they can be replanted.
  • Book Love, edited by James Charlton and Bill Henderson, is out from Pushcart Press on April 23, the International Day of the Book.
sierras25

Texting 'is no bar to literacy' | Technology | The Guardian - 6 views

www.theguardian.com/...schools.mobilephones

shared by sierras25 on 16 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • But the study did find that the pupils familiar with text messaging wrote significantly less when asked to describe a picture or an event than those who did not use mobiles, potentially fuelling concerns that the quality and expressiveness of children's writing could be at risk even if their spelling is not.
  • The study, conducted at the the department of communication and science at City University in London, comes amid growing concern in some quarters over the potentially damaging effects of new technologies on children's ability to communicate effectively using conventional means
  • News Technology Texting 'is no bar to literacy' Share Tweet this Email Lucy Ward, social affairs correspondent The Guardian, Wednesday 22 December 2004 It's gr8 news 4 skools. Claims that the explosion in text messaging among children is eroding youngsters' literacy skills appear to be unfounded, according to research. A study comparing the punctuation and spelling of 11- and 12-year-olds who use mobile phone text messaging with another group of non-texters conducting the same written tests found no significant differences between the two. Both groups made some grammatical and spelling errors, and "text-speak" abbreviations and symbols did not find their way into the written English of youngsters used to texting. According to the author of the research, the speech and language therapist Veenal Raval, the findings reflect children's ability to "code switch", or move between modes of communication - a trend familiar to parents whose offspring slip effortlessly between playground slang and visit-the-grandparents politeness. But the study did find that the pupils familiar with text messaging wrote significantly less when asked to describe a picture or an event than those who did not use mobiles, potentially fuelling concerns that the quality and expressiveness of children's writing could be at risk even if their spelling is not. The study, conducted at the the department of communication and science at City University in London, comes amid growing concern in some quarters over the potentially damaging effects of new technologies on children's ability to communicate effectively using conventional mean
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  • The leap in the popularity of mobiles and text messaging among children and teenagers over the past five years has prompted concern that pupils' literacy skills could suffer
  • Chief examiners' reports on trends in public examinations have begun to note instances of texting language in exam scripts. Some cases - includ ing a 13-year-old Scottish pupil who wrote an entire description of her summer holidays in text-speak - have provoked concern among some teachers
sylvyapaladino

Why Web Literacy Should Be Part of Every Education | Co.Exist | ideas + impact - 0 views

www.fastcoexist.com/...uld-be-part-of-every-education

Literacy Debate

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Like reading, writing, and arithmetic, web literacy is both content and activity. You don’t just learn “about” reading: you learn to read. You don’t just learn “about” arithmetic: you learn to count and calculate. You don’t just learn “about” the web: you learn to make your own website.
  • No one would have believed that peers could contribute knowledge and advice, helping one another to learn through YouTube videos, Wikipedia, or other sites. In fact, if you go back to 2000, before any of those things existed, you cannot find accepted theories of human nature, economics, or earning that could predict that those things could and would exist in less than a decade. No one guessed Wikipedia’s success, not even its founders. We simply didn’t know that, without a work plan, a lesson plan, or a taxonomy of what “counts” as knowledge, without leadership or payments or designated roles, people--non-experts--would build the largest encyclopedia the world has ever known, because we love to share what we know with others, and we’re even willing to spend endless hours creating our own community standards, editing, and making it right.
sylvyapaladino

The Six Early Literacy Skills | CLEL - 0 views

www.clel.org/...six-early-literacy-skills-0

Literacy

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Six basic skills comprise early literacy and help determine whether a child will be ready to learn to read and write.
  • PRINT MOTIVATION: includes being interested in and enjoying books.
  • Kids who enjoy books and reading will be curious about reading and motivated to learn to read themselves. Motivation is important because learning to read is HARD WORK!
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  • PRINT AWARENESS: includes noticing print everywhere, knowing how to handle a book, and knowing how to follow the written word on the page.
  • Children have to be aware of words before they can read them. They need to know how books work--which is the front cover, what's upside down and right side up, which page to start on, how to look from left to right on each line of text.
  • LETTER KNOWLEDGE: includes knowing that letters are different from each other, knowing letter names and sounds, and recognizing letters everywhere.
  • To read words, children have to understand that a word isn’t one single thing—it’s made up of smaller things, and those smaller things are letters
  • VOCABULARY: includes knowing the names of things.
  • It's much easier to decode a word on the page when it's a word you already know. So children with bigger vocabularies have an easier time when they start to read, since it's much easier for them to make sense of what they're sounding out. Children who understand what they're reading are more motivated to keep reading.
  • PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS: includes hearing and playing with the smaller sounds of words and recognizing that words are made up of a number of different sounds.
  • hildren who can hear how words "come apart" into separate sounds will be more successful at "sounding out" words when they start to read.
  • NARRATIVE SKILLS: include describing things and events, telling stories, knowing the order of events (sequencing), and making predictions (what might happen next).
  • f children can describe something, they have an understanding of it. If children can tell what’s happening in a story they’re reading, they are comprehending the story and not just the sounds of each individual word. Understanding what they're reading is crucial to helping them stay motivated to keep reading. If they don’t understand what they’re reading, they won’t care, and they won't want to put in the practice they need to become fluent readers.
sylvyapaladino

Literacy Skills Definition and Suggested Reading - 0 views

giftedkids.about.com/...literacy.htm

Literacy

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Definition: Literacy skills are all the skills needed for reading and writing. They include such things as awareness of the sounds of language, awareness of print and the relationship between letters and sounds. Other literacy skills include vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension
sylvyapaladino

Neuman Celano library study: Educational technology worsens achievement gaps. - 0 views

www.slate.com/..._worsens_achievement_gaps.html

Negative Literacy Debate

shared by sylvyapaladino on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The two were especially interested in how the introduction of computers might “level the playing field” for the neighborhoods’ young people, children of “concentrated affluence” and “concentrated poverty.” They undertook their observations in a hopeful frame of mind: “Given the wizardry of these machines and their ability to support children’s self-teaching,” they wondered, “might we begin to see a closing of the opportunity gap?
  • Many hours of observation and analysis later, Neuman and Celanano were forced to acknowledge a radically different outcome: “The very tool designed to level the playing field is, in fact, un-leveling it,” they wrote in a 2012 book based on their Philadelphia library study. With the spread of educational technology, they predicted, “the not-so-small disparities in skills for children of affluence and children of poverty are about to get even larger.”
  • Neuman and Celano are not the only researchers to reach this surprising and distressing conclusion. While technology has often been hailed as the great equalizer of educational opportunity, a growing body of evidence indicates that in many cases, tech is actually having the opposite effect: It is increasing the gap between rich and poor, between whites and minorities, and between the school-ready and the less-prepared.
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  • The unleveling impact of technology also has to do with a phenomenon known as the “Matthew Effect”: the tendency for early advantages to multiply over time.
  • negative effect on academic achievement—and in these cases, poor students’ performance suffers more than that of their richer peers. In an article to be published next month in the journal Economic Inquiry, for example, Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor and co-authors Helen Ladd and Erika Martinez report their analysis of what happened when high-speed Internet service was rolled out across North Carolina: Math and reading test scores of the state’s public school students went down in each region as broadband was introduced, and this negative impact was greatest among economically disadvantaged students. Dousing the hope that spreading technology will engender growing equality, the authors write: “Reliable evidence points to the conclusion that broadening student access to home computers or home Internet service would widen, not narrow, achievement gaps.”
bgfeltner

Texting, Twitter contributing to students' poor grammar skills, profs say - 2 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article4304193

shared by bgfeltner on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • bgfeltner on 15 Jul 14
     
    "Little or no grammar teaching, cell phone texting, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, are all being blamed for an increasingly unacceptable number of post-secondary students who can't write. For years there's been a flood of anecdotal complaints from professors about what they say is the wretched state of English grammar coming from some of their students."
sgbrudna

4 ways texting is killing our communication skills | Articles | Home - 2 views

www.prdaily.com/...ommunication_skills_13330.aspx

texting communication Decline Literacy Debate Negative Skills

shared by sgbrudna on 16 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • 1. Texting reduces the need for in-depth conversations. Have you texted people as a form of avoidance? A few abbreviated words keep people from meaningful dialogue and face-to-face communication. It also diminishes the importance of body language in our communication. 2. Texting dumbs down spelling and grammar. "Txtspk" leads to deficiencies in basic language skills. Shortcuts with spelling, punctuation and emoticons don't help children and teenagers learn the necessary writing and communication skills they need for college and the workforce. Are these convenient shortcuts, acronyms and abbreviations giving way to generations of lazy and sloppy communicators? (Oh, gr8.) 3. Texting distracts us from being fully present. Earlier this year, the industry association that represents wireless communications (CTIA) reported that more than 184 billion text messages are sent each month in the U.S. These messages interrupt our brain function and attention. Texting pulls our focus away from the people and tasks we are experiencing in a moment, which deprives us of being completely present in our lives. 4. Texting invites ambiguity. Joel Willans wrote on Nokia.com: "The format of 160 characters was determined in 1993 by a communications researcher, Friedham Hillebrand. While trying to standardize the technology that would allow cell phones to transmit and display messages, he discovered that the average sentence or question needed just 160 characters." This leaves too many opportunities to mistakenly read between the lines.
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