Over the last few years, cellular phone text messaging has drastically changed the social lives of our teenager’s generation. This form of technology and communication has negatively intervened in the social development of our youth today. It has replaced the captivating and powerful form of face-to-face communication with allowing teens to express their feelings, thoughts, and emotional connections through a simple, impersonal text message. The technology of text messaging was created to exchange short messages to people and to use when a person was not able to actually use the phone for a phone call. The technology was not invented to replace the art of direct interpersonal communication.
The phenomenon of the text message has ruined the young generation by damaging their social skills. Teens are so comfortable for with texting then to actually in person conversation that they are now scared or intimidated to have a regular conversation. This is causing our teens to lack some verbal communication skills that they will definitely need later in life like when going to job interviews, having to speak with another person about business, or even having effective communication with their partner in their relationships. Texting is causing teens not to enjoy the simple thing in life such as having conversation at the table at family dinners or watching and enjoying a movie. It is a distraction that has now made itself a part of teenager’s lifestyle.
Its sad to say that even in our school systems, texting has had a huge impact on our youth. The art of text messaging has its own language. Every other word is abbreviated or is shortened to fit in the message. With more then 87 percent of our teens using the text message feature, a very high percent of that number use this text language in school. This is messing up the individual’s vocabulary and written communication skills. Teens are using the text language in class subconsciously because, they are so used to texting all day, every day. Text messaging is also causing a disruption in the classroom by interfering with teacher’s lectures or teens not even paying attention due to the fact they are starring down at the phone sending and receiving messages the whole class. We have to figure out a way to help our youth distinguish the difference in the forms of communication to ensure that they know how to correctly use grammar and being able to focus on things that actually matter such as getting their education.
Texting messaging has even had a major impact of our teenagers emotional feelings as well. Many messages can be misinterpreted causing a ripple effect of unnecessary negatively in someone’s life. Even simple things such as a person texting another and not getting a response can cause so much stress in a teenager’s life that it can harmfully and negatively impact their mind being. Text messaging can also ruin relationships due to
