Running head: TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Textings Effects on Student Work

Elisea Melendez
Nevada State College
April 20, 2015

Reflection
I believe that overall I did I decent job on this paper. I organized it well and I believe that
I made it clear and understandable. I tried my best to try not to keep the reader hanging and lost.
I could have given myself a lot more time than I did. If I would have given myself more time I
would have been able to do more research then I put out. Overall this paper was a good
experience and I learned a lot from it.

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Introduction
LOL this is my paper r u excited 2 read it? Using this type of wording in your papers is
defiantly not an appropriate way to start an academic paper. For a lot of young adults, texting is
the primary method of communication, and it could be becoming a problem for their academic
work. One article states, With the ever increasing use of text messaging among students,
especially teenagers, there has been a growing concern among educators, parents, researchers
and general public (Aziz, 2013, p.12884). According to Lenhart, They are concerned that the
quality of writing by young Americans is being degraded by their electronic communication,
with its carefree spelling, lax punctuation and grammar, and its acronym shortcuts. (Lenhart, A.,
Arafeh, S., & Smith, A., 2008, pg.1) This concern raises the question: is texting affecting
students literary work in school?
Literature Review
Students these days are constantly typing away on their cell phones. I have seen them
typing at home, on their way to class, in class, during their homework, and almost any chance
they get. Texting is starting to become a problem in classrooms. In a survey by the Pew Internet
& American Life Project, he states, Nearly two-thirds of teens (64%) say they incorporate some
informal styles from their text-based communications into their writing at school.(Lenhart, A.,
Arafeh, S., & Smith, A., 2008, pg.2) Extant literature on texting and student writing has found
two themes. First, high school and college teachers are starting to see the effects of texting in
students writing. Texting is also starting to become a time consuming hobby.
When completing a text message, the goal is to get the text done as fast as possible. This
is another problem, while completing school work students will tend to rush through it. Students

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

are picking up an addiction to social media and texting. In an article related to this subject it
states:
This reliance on technology and social interaction carries over into student study habits.
Nearly two-thirds (62%) of students surveyed by the Pew Research Project reported
studying for classes no more than seven hours per week, while only 14% reported
studying 12 or more hours per week. Students focus more on updating their Facebook
status than downloading their homework assignments, which profoundly impacts their
collegiate experience. (Hanson, T. L., Drumheller, K., Mallard, J., McKee, C., &
Schlegel, P., 2010)
This not only shows less commitment to their work. This also shows how they rush though
studying and school work to get back on their phones to text and connect to social media.
When it comes to texting, the goal is to abbreviate as much as possible. Aziz (2013)
states, SMS language is a term for the abbreviations and rebus-like slang most commonly used
due to the essential pithiness of mobile phone text messaging etiquette (Aziz, p.12884). If
someone is using this slang and abbreviations on a daily basis the mind is going to adapt to it.
With this being said, it will soon become and everyday thing. Students will be adding these into
their academic papers.
When students are replying in text form, they tend not to be concerned about their
grammar. Poor grammar tends to affect their papers, and they tend to add there slang into their
papers. Aziz (2013) did a survey and found that students knew texting was affecting their
schoolwork. Here are the results:
The findings of questionnaires meant for students reveal that a great majority of them
i.e., 72% thinks their writing is affected by SMS language and 28% think its not. While
the same question answered by 15 educators teaching English at the same level in the
same university reveal that 100% of them opine that their students academic writing is
affected by SMS language.( p.12887)

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

This shows that texting is becoming a problem. It is outstanding to see that 28% of the students
believe that texting is not affecting their work. This means that 72% of students have
experienced the outcome of using slang to much in their text messages.
Professors and teachers are noticing how bad this is getting day by day. Verheijen (2013)
stated:
Text and instant messaging are negatively affecting students writing quality on a daily
basis, as they bring their abbreviated language into the classroom. As a result of their
electronic chatting, kids are making countless syntax, subject-verb agreement and
spelling mistakes in writing assignments. [M]any teachers believed that students wide
use of text speak was a key factor in their students negative performance. [T]ext
speak is a problem. (Verheijen, 2013, p.585)
This is an example that shows texting is not helping with students grammar and punctuation.
There has been a lot of different experiments conducted to try and provide the information to
answer my question. Texting does have an effect on students school work. If it is negative affect
or not this is based on the person and their ability to multi task and separate social life to
academic life.
Methods
A study that I plan to conduct is an online survey based on peoples opinion on if texting
effects student academic writing. In this study I want to see what side they lean towards. I use
this information to decide how negative social media and texting is in todays society.
Some of the questions I will put into the survey are as followed: 1.What is you gender? 2.
How old are you? 3. What is you race/ethnicity? 4. What is your level of education? 5. About
how many texts do you send out in one day? 6. Do you believe texting has an impact on
students academic work? Why or why not?
Since there is such a wide variety and debates on whether or not texting effects students
work I plan to just ask people there opinions because this is what I am most interested in. My

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

goal is to see what other people have to say about todays learning styles and the effects of today
technology on them.

TEXTINGS EFFECTS ON STUDENT WORK

Reference
Aziz, S., Shamim, M., Aziz, M. F., & Avais, P. (2013). The Impact of Texting/SMS Language
on Academic Writing of Students-What do we need to panic about?. Elixir Linguistics
and Translation.
Hanson, T. L., Drumheller, K., Mallard, J., McKee, C., & Schlegel, P. (2010). Cell phones, text
messaging, and Facebook: Competing time demands of today's college students. College
teaching, 59(1), 23-30.
Lenhart, A., Arafeh, S., & Smith, A. (2008). Writing, technology and teens. Pew Internet
& American Life Project.
Lieke Verheijen (2013) The Effects of Text Messaging and Instant Messaging on Literacy,
English Studies