Texting good for teenagers…

Researchers from Coventry University say that writing text messages could be positive for children’s language development. Their study involved 88 children aged between 10 and 12 and looked at the impact of text messaging on their language skills. Apparently not only does texting have a positive impact on reading development it could also spawn a whole new generation of writers. Children who acquire a mobile phone when younger perform better on literacy and language tests. The full report has been published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Text messages traditionally only comprise 160 characters requiring text message senders to be brief and to the point – this need for conciseness encourages the use of contractions, shortenings, symbols and non-conventional spellings. These aberrations to traditional grammar practice and spelling are all the things that have the older generation throwing their hands up in despair as to how teenagers will ever fit into real world. Perhaps this is the real world?
If you look at how SMS text messaging plays a part in everyday life from a personal communication tool to a business tool and its use in a wide variety of industries, maybe the obsession with text messages is more easily understood.

More than 3 billion people on the planet use SMS text messaging as a way of communicating. Banks use it against fraud and identity theft attempts as well as for mobile banking applications. Schools use this mobile application to communicate quickly with staff and parents in combating absenteeism. Governments use emergency SMS notifications to text message relevant departments and co-ordinate disaster management. Political parties use it to raise awareness of their campaign and receive funding. The National Health Service uses it to remind patients of appointments and allow patients access to the medical information that they might need. Companies use it to stay in touch with staff, suppliers and customers in a bid to reduce call-centre costs and expand their service delivery. Social network sites or applications use text messaging to add a mobile component to their user offering. The list of actual and potential applications goes on and on.

Text messaging is here to stay and the applications behind it are incredibly diverse offering flexible options such as bulk SMS sending, triggered text message sending, premium-rated text messages and two-way SMS. Not only can an individual or company send a SMS text message to anybody in the world with a mobile phone and network coverage but they can send the message securely and in real-time. With a reliable SMS Gateway provider, you can also track the delivery of all of your messages and choose the network that you wish to send text messages through.

Dr Beverley Plester, the lead author of the report and senior lecturer at Coventry University says that; “The more exposure you have to the written word the more literate you become and we tend to get better at things that we do for fun.” The University of Toronto weighs in on the topic with their research showing that instant messaging has a positive effect on children’s command of language. There is no excuse not to understand the text messaging phenomenon – your kids get it, so should you.

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Tags: emergency SMS notifications, SMS, SMS text messages, text messaging