Over 6 billion text messages are sent each day in the U.S., making it the country’s second most used form of communication. Since the invention of texting around 40 years ago, texting has shifted from short and convenient communication to a growing acceptance in professional environments.
Texting has developed into a flexible medium capable of fitting diverse contexts and serving multiple functions. Despite common misconceptions, texting informally does not lead to widespread and problematic poor grammar or spelling in formal contexts.
The question stands: How seriously are we to take texting as a means of communication?
While there are cases in which people need to be more careful with how they text, texting is not supposed to be reduced to rigid rules and structures. Unlike emails or academic essays, texting doesn’t take a specific format. Nor does it impact people’s writing skills negatively.
Laney Carpenter, a second-year English major concentrating in film, explains that though she occasionally uses formal elements such as grammar and proper spelling through text, it is just a personal preference for her.
“I know it’s not serious,” Carpenter said. “There’s no stakes. And I can be really funny and creative and not have to think about what I’m doing. You know, [be] stupid, unironic or ironic. With a boss, [however,] it’s always capitalized with punctuation.”
Texting is inherently an informal mode of communication used in casual contexts. Something that is more professional or serious in nature most likely won’t be communicated via text.
However, that doesn’t mean that texting is limited to informality. Serious conversations can be had over text; the way we text will of course change to match the situation.
“If I’m going to text someone about serious things, I do take a lot more time to think about what I’m going to say than I do whenever I’m just texting my friends [casually],” Carpenter said. “If it’s going to be something that’s very much going to affect them emotionally, affect their lives on a day to day basis … maybe talk in person, maybe call.”
Texting shouldn’t be blamed entirely, or even at all, for bad writing habits. We are typically aware of the importance of context. Instead, bad writing habits might be the result of someone’s experience with writing in professional and formal contexts.
“I think if writing is impeded, it is not because they’ve been texting,” Carpenter said. “It is some other circumstance in their life, just based on how often they’ve written, how much instruction they’ve gotten on how to best write. I don’t think texting is usually the problem when people aren’t as proficient at writing.”
As an English major concentrating in rhetoric and professional writing, I am constantly taught about the importance of context and how it shapes how and what we write. If anything, texting’s versatility allows people to better distinguish between formal and informal writing because they are very different from each other. It is difficult to mix up the two with experience.
Carpenter further explained that texting is a space where people can freely express themselves and their thoughts.
“Texting is something easy, an easy way to communicate, and I think that making it formal would take away that ease,” Carpenter said. “It has a personality, and sometimes when that’s taken away it’s jarring.”
You should text to talk to friends, gossip, quickly send grocery lists to your parents and awkwardly explain missing a shift to your boss.
It can be used formally and informally, so we shouldn’t restrict ourselves to the stifling guidelines of “proper” writing. Texting isn’t the place for that requirement; if you think otherwise, I advise you to turn to writing emails or letters instead.
