Text messages harm written language?

The spread of text messages is causing great alarm to educational authorities all over the world. More and more often, we find sms language on projects, written work or tests. Students have to be conscious that this type of language is just for mobile phone use. Here we have a description of this kind of language, together with some news on the effects of sms language on standard written language and a glosary on mobile phone texting terms.

SMS language (also known as chatspeak, txt, txtspk, texting language or txt talk) is the English language slang used in mobile phone SMS. It is an abbreviated form of English. This type of language has been alleged to not obey or follow standard English grammar; furthermore, the words used in the writing system can't be found in standard dictionaries. The invention of mobile phone messages may be considered as its source, although elliptical styles of writing dating back to at least the days of telegraphese. There are no standard rules for writing SMS languages. The objective of txt is to use the fewest number of characters needed to convey a comprehensible message. Hence, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization are largely ignored. Source and more information.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The rising popularity of text messaging on cell phones poses a threat to writing standards among Irish schoolchildren, an education commission says. The frequency of errors in grammar and punctuation has become a serious concern, the State Examination Commission said in a report after reviewing last year's exam performance by 15-year-olds.

"The emergence of the mobile phone and the rise of text messaging as a popular means of communication would appear to have impacted on standards of writing as evidenced in the responses of candidates," the report said, according to Wednesday's Irish Times. "Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing."
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Mobile phone texting glosary.