• You look ecstatically down at a pile of essays your students have written and researched for two months. You hastily grab an essay at random, and begin to read. In the first paragraph, you catch two text talk words: ‘lol’ and ‘brb’, plus the word ‘is’, twice in each sentence. Alarmed, but assured the mistake wouldn’t occur in another assignment, you grab the next essay. The writing is so dull and the least bit from intriguing, your eyelids are tempted to droop. The only big word caught in five pages was ‘calamity’. The word itself described 50% of what the essays were. What is going on?
    Text messaging emerged as a new and popular language of over 1,200 words. It has changed the way students talk and write immensely. In 2002, teachers began to worry about spelling and text talk mistakes in their students’ papers. More and more errors kept showing up as time went on, as well as low grades. “Text talk is a faster way to type and get my ideas through; that’s why I use it,” says 7th grader Mary Young. I can understand her message, but text talk can cut into school and the way we speak without even knowing it. Some students don’t understand that when their teacher reads their essay, it’s boring and filled with choppy, un-sublime words. They don’t understand that text messaging doesn’t improve their arguments, but only makes them duller.
    Text talk didn’t just emerge out of the blue; technology caused it to be useful and significant. Teens time spent online went up 41% in three years, and many of them declare, “I can’t live without the internet!” In 2003, ages 2-11 spent an average of 399 minutes online. In 2006, the sum was 562.59 minutes spent. Since then, it’s almost doubled. Youth expend time on technology rather than spelling checks on important essays. I know few people whoever look up words in the dictionary, or learn new ones in a thesaurus. If they rarely use big words, their essays won’t be intriguing. “The word ‘get’ or ‘good’ doesn’t give anyone nearly enough information,” says 7th grade L.A. teacher, Carina Sims.
    Many teenagers find lessons boring and irrelevant, and think that the education system should be changed to suit their needs. Eight out of ten people agree that middle school isn’t important because “grades only matter in high school”. That may be true, but what happens when you can’t write formally, and get low Cs on your Language Art assignments? In order to succeed in school and in the future, teenagers should devote more time expanding vocabulary and extending their language art skills.
    Numerous youth claim that writing doesn’t help them in their forthcoming years, but several people can dispute. Argument skills increase by writing and word usage a lot. Believe it or not, large words are more important than teenagers think. They achieve them intelligence, easy-thought sentences, and respect from others. They also make them sound more believable and persuasive. If one of those youth was to become president, their arguments would need to sound strong. To get an idea through someone’s mind, it would only work if their attention was hooked on each word. “Once in a while I hear someone use a big word, and I think, WOW! I don’t exercise my vocabulary to its full capacity, and I wish I did,” comments jamiem on the book 100 Words that Make You Sound Smart. On Wikipedia, an author argued that text talk improves everyone’s informal writing. Everyone knows informality, so it can’t help creative ideas and words in papers.
    Text messaging and electronics can cause stress and unawareness of important assignments. They both may seem harmless, but they are usually the reason why students don’t get their essays in on time. They spend as much time as possible chatting and playing games, and use valuable time on cell phones rather homework. The lack of effort and time spent on writing and big words needs to stop so teens can “learn and achieve”. However, students shouldn’t be pushed extremely hard to get straight As because they’ll become stressed out day after day when a teacher hands back tests/ assignments.
    World problems have found several causes and solutions, but this case is lacking them both. My only idea is the encouragement of word-efficient books and programs, such as the Spelling Bee. It increases vocabulary and help youth to learn concepts throughout school. Also, teens can begin spending more time reading and looking up words in the dictionary. People will enjoy listening to students’ opinions with more dashes of large words. They will be highly respected (in general) using complex vocabulary. Lastly, their writing skills will increase. To stop this academic epidemic, youth should put down their cell phones and perform a spelling check, for the sublime purpose of large and formal words.