Does Texting and Facebook Make Us Stupider?
Author: DavidJones // Category: Books, Pop Culture, Youth Culture–
“LOL Idk brb”
Does that look familiar? If not, it’s time to enter 2009. If you have a phone or have been online for a brief second, you’ve seen that language.
When we text, use Facebook, and update Twitter, we’re likely to use “cyber language” (or abbreviations) to say what we want to say. It’s been happening online since AOL introduced their Instant Messenger.
However, is it possible that using these abbreviations is damaging our intelligence, or even stunting our intellectual potential?
Maybe you think I’m being ridiculous, but consider the facts. Many teens (and adults) spend more time on a computer for leisure than for work or school. It’s very rare for people to use proper spelling and grammar when sending a text, updating Twitter, or posting a new status. Granted, some people do, but not all.
People chat in “shorthand cyber slang” that produces “sentences” that look like “just wanted 2 say ur great i luv u ttyl lol.”
I can’t help but think with so much time spent online and texting, this HAS to crossover into other areas of life. Hopefully most adults have had enough grammar ingrained in their minds to avoid this problem, but with teens it’s a very real issue.
Do teens know when to use there, their, or they’re? What about you’re, your, and ur? (One of those doesn’t belong.) Do they even care? Maybe not.
Sometimes I wonder if our advancements in technology are actually advancing a need to dumb down the rest of society. Why read a book when you can take a quiz that tells you what classic novel you are? Why watch the news and think about difficult issues when you can watch “real life drama” on Gossip Girl?
Are we becoming dumber from all this? Idk.