Texting: Are We Speechless Now?

It seems as if we have found a new way to talk, but without our mouth. Barker's article, "Technology leaves teens speechless," gave a modern issue of texting versus verbal communication. She gave real life and real people examples of how teens today are constantly text messaging rather than having face to face conversations. It is not only affecting their verbal communication skills, but it seems as if it will affect schoolwork like grammar, and even skills of the workplace. In her article, she goes into detail about how teens are living their lives through this technology and even developing relationships via texts and IM. Also, the text messaging phenomenon has affect the way teens are now reacting and responding in a verbal conversation like the classroom, an interview, or just a face to face conversation.
The other article focuses more on the historical context of the development of communication and its role in society. Harold Adams Innis was a political economist who studied the social history of communication media. His main belief was in regards to a cultures ability to survive with a balanced dependability on media. "For Innis, a key to social change is found in the development of communication media." He believes that oral communication is time biased because you need face to face contact.

I believe that text messaging has been taken to the highest extent it can possibly go, but I am still afraid of where it will go in the future too. It may seem as if we cannot advance any further, but new technology always finds a way into our lives. Current teens are very dependent on texting, and it seems that if one is without it, their lives are completely out of the social loop. I completely agree with Barker, and I really do feel that teens now are being negatively affected by texting and are revolving their lives around the technology that they feed on. AIM, emails, and text messages have completely taken over face to face conversations or even conversations over the telephone. It is really scary to think where we can go from here, will we be so advanced one day that we will never have to open our mouths again to communicate? Its hard to believe, but it just might be a possibility.

The video below demonstrates how teens have been negatively affected by texting. Grammar skills are decreasing, and students are relying too much on technology to think for them. Spell check has taken over spelling, and text messaging lingo are now appearing in formal papers and assignments..








Barker, Olivia. "Technology leaves teens speechless." USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-05-29-teen-texting_x.htm

Innis, Harold Adams. The Bias of Communication. 1951. Intro. Marshall McLuhan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964.
http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/innis.htm