Texting makes kids smarter

Or maybe kids who text are smarter. Either way, apparently we can all relax when it comes to teens who communicate with messages like this:

hey
hey
wat r u up to?
nada, u?
gr8 day 2day. pizza 4 brkfst
cool
yeah
u goin 2 the dance?
no
why
idk- ru?
yeah
why
idk looks like fun
ok- g2g, cul8r
bye

Apparently- all that was a stimulating mental experience, like a critical thinking exercise. Connie Varnhagen, a researcher, discovered that whether a teen texts or not has absolutely NO bearing upon their reading, writing or spelling abilities. Actually, a bunch of researchers are discovering that not only is it “not a bad thing” but it might actually be “a good thing” because in some ways, the texting teens were smarter.

I haven’t read the studies, I tried to get to the source of one and realized that this is a blog not a research paper, so I don’t really have to find the real source, I can just ~~make stuff up~~ speculate and that’s OK.

I don’t know if the study took into consideration that the teens who can afford to text all day possibly come from homes with higher incomes, who tend to score better anyway (except my teen perhaps)

I could speculate that schools make the written language REEALLYY boring, but humans have a deep primal need to communicate with one another, so teens text (when I was a teen, we passed notes) and because it’s more interesting than schoolwork it stimulates their brains more, and is pleasurable because of the interaction. The decoding of cryptic acronyms is like a word puzzle. Stumping a friend with an acronym they haven’t heard yet probably gives teens an ego boost, inspiring both parties to continue.

I don’t know, who knows. CUL8R (See you later)

For the original article, check out OMG! Texting doesn’t affect spelling from Mental Floss