OMG! Writing in text speak does NOT damage teenage language skills according to a study of hundreds of GCSE papers 

  • Social media messages have in the past been attacked by traditionalists 
  • They believe so called 'text speak' is 'dumbing down' children's language
  • Scientists concluded that teenagers generally can still use formal English

By Matt Hunter For Mailonline

Published: 04:49 EST, 2 December 2016 | Updated: 05:33 EST, 2 December 2016

Teenagers' text speak does not harm their language skills, new research has revealed. 

Social media messages filled with the likes of 'omg' and 'lol' have in the past been attacked by traditionalists for 'dumbing down' the English language. 

But scientists have trawled through hundreds of GCSE papers and concluded that teenagers do not on the whole take their text speak into the exam hall.   

Social media messages filled with the likes of 'omg' and 'lol' have in the past been attacked by traditionalists for 'dumbing down' the English language

In fact, successful students were skilled in able to move between using casual language between friends and standard English for exams.

University of Cambridge researchers analysed text speak abbreviations like 'ppl' for people and the @ and & signs for 'at' and 'and'. Popular text emoticons were also included in the search. 

A total of 60 exam papers, from pupils of differing ability, from 2014 were used in the research against a batch from 2004, to compare how the spread of mobile phone and text messaging usage had affected language. 

Filio Constantinou from the research team told The Times: 'Students have a relatively well developed register awareness. They are aware of the fact that text speak is not acceptable to communicate in formal writing.' 

Presenting the findings at a conference in London yesterday, Dr Constantinou said: 'Lower-achieving candidates who sat exams two years ago, however, were twice as likely to start sentences with a lower case rather than a capital letter as teenagers who took their exams a decade earlier, although this was not evident with the majority who achieved a C grade or higher. 

'Students who were awarded D, E, F or G grades were also more likely to omit full stops.' 

Scientists have trawled through hundreds of GCSE papers and concluded that teenagers do not on the whole take their text speak into the exam hall

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