Grammar and Technology: Are teens stupid, lazy, and illiterate?

Grammar and Technology: Are teens stupid, lazy, and illiterate? yayyy. mmmhm. princessprobz. errybody. teamspurret. A quick scroll through a Twitter feed includes a multiplicity of “techspeak” terms. Clearly, changing “everybody” to “errybody” does nothing to the time it takes to type the word, nor does changing “team spirit” to “teamspurret.” If teenagers spend hours on end communicating through technology, why must they use such strange, faulty grammar and spelling? As researchers claim, has this next generation of text savvy teens surpassed the need for the traditional English language? Is the written language dead and obsolete? Is the world going to end because teens no longer capitalize “i” when they text each other‽ No, no, no. For the uneducated student, the current communication system is quite convenient. They need not worry about ridicule from their friends if they butcher their spelling and grammar; it is expected. Contrary to popular belief, the root of techspeak is not laziness or speed. Perhaps that was the cause a number of years ago when cell phones forced teens to use shortcuts because of the tiny, cumbersome keyboards. Today, iPhones and other popular smartphones have a remarkable AutoCorrect system in them. iPhones will correct seemingly unintelligible combinations of letters to legitimate words. It can correct “nevaiar” to “because” and “ehrrrbrr” to “wherever” because the letters intended are near to the letters typed. With this state of the art technology at the fingertips of today’s youth, why would they not take advantage of this? Phones and computers will capitalize words, add punctuation and correct spelling automatically, yet teens purposefully defer from this convenience. Why? Parents and educators look down upon the styles of writing teens use today because of the negative impacts they claim they have. “For a number of years teachers and parents have blamed texting for two ills: the corruption of language and