The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

124 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 4 she presents five studies concluding a positive effect, nine mixed or inconclusive results, but only two that found a negative effect (Verheijen, 2013, p. 588- 595). Often, because technology evolves so rapidly, data and results become outdated and no longer significant. For example, according to K. Bostley, the author of the article “Is Texting Hurting Us Academically?” texting originally had a character limit of only 160 words per text. This would encourage the use of shortened phrases and words, and consequently, could cause a decline in literacy. Even though this information may have been relevant a few years ago, this data would now be considered outdated and no longer valid, because the majority of today’s phones have an extremely large to no character limit for texting and instant messaging. Result relativity and quantity is an important factor to be considered, but does this mean that we should conservatively limit ourselves and our children from texting and instant messaging? Will textese actually decrease our literacy and ultimately make us less functional in society? The answer is not as black and white as one might expect. Instant messaging effects literacy differently for every person. There are many different factors in life that determine our literacy ability, such as, parental relationships, schooling opportunities, racial influences, and class of wealth. For example, an individual who is living in an impoverished area with high-school educated adults, will have different opportunities as compared to someone who has been raised with wealth and lives in communities where higher-education is expected. This is not to say one situation will produce a better individual than the other, but simply that there will be different opportunities for different people. Similarly, studies have shown that adults’ literacy is affected by texting differently than children’s literacy (Grace, Kemp, Martin, & Parrila, 2014). For children, textism use can encourage creative thought, and in adults, Text Messaging