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I was able to interview T9’s Marketing guy, James Young last week. For those unfamiliar, T9 is the company behind the “predictive text” software we see in most Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Windows Mobile and Motorola phones:
A campaign is being launched in the South East Asia region to address the alarming rate of elementary school kids who have succumbed to the pangs of “text speak.†Abbreviated words like “tnxâ€, “go der†or “w8″ have been appearing in elementary school essays and the worst thing about it is that a good number of these children don’t see anything wrong with it.
The campaign is currently ongoing, albeit silently. Wizard of Ads, the events company behind T9 development company Tegic, is helping create noise about the growing concern of “txt speak” to the younger generation. I’m only familiar with De La Salle University in Taft as one of the schools that supports this campaign.
As a parent, sibling and blogger, how much concern do you think this merits? Rico narrates the following experience:
My sister’s friend, who used to teach in High School, said that her students were using text speak in essays. And this was more than four years ago!
This should be a true concern, because I believe that properly spelling out words facilitates meaningful written communication. The problem with text speak is that it encourages lazy writing, in the sense that someone uses it to convey a message with as little effort as possible.
That’s understandable in today’s fast-paced world, but can we expect people who can’t even bother with proper spelling to express themselves properly through writing? What a waste if this was the case!
Are we unconsciously raising a generation that cannot spell right, because of a mobile phone?
