Is Texting Mangling the English Language?

Do your OMGs and LOLs have you sometimes srsly forgetting how to write in proper English? If so, you may not be alone.

Texting is on the rise, and changing the ways people interact with language. For some high schoolers today, abbreviations like those above have likely been a part of their vocabulary since they learned to write a five-paragraph essay. So just how embedded in formal communications could texting slang become?

While that remains to be seen, there’s no doubting the impact it’s had so far. The Internet education portal OnlineSchools.com recently took a look at the trend and came up with some interesting findings via sources including the British Journal of Psychology, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and PBS.

Among the more interesting tidbits they report: An estimated 8 trillion text messages were sent in 2011, and 95% of cellphone owners between the ages of 18 and 29 send texts. A 17-year-old in Wisconsin even took home $50,000 this year for flawlessly typing a 149-character message in just 39 seconds. Several texting terms have made their way into the hallowed Oxford English Dictionary, and with good reason — 97% of 18- to 24-year-olds who own a cellphone text daily.

But before you get angry, and blame new-fangled technology for destroying our language, consider this: British politician Winston Churchill reportedly received the first OMG in an old-fashioned letter way back in 1917.

For more, check out the full OnlineSchools infographic at http://www.onlineschools.com/in-focus/text-talk. Then, let us know in the comments: Do you think text messaging is bad for the English language, or are its effects negligible?