Special Report on Instant Messaging:
Killing Student Writing or Aiding Voice?
By Erin A. & Taryn B., Navy Team

Teachers all across the nation are fighting back against Instant Messaging, but is there really a problem? A recent report from a national council of English teachers announced that students are including their instant message slang in school work and papers, and many teachers are worried that this jargon is damaging the language.

The report said that 74% of teens and 44% of adults use instant messaging systems or, as some researchers would put it, “…are spending hours and hours talking in language that isn't real.”

However, does it really affect our grammar and writing skills? There is actually conflicting data that suggests that the lingo is having no effect. A 2005 study said that students are actually better writers than they were five years ago.

In some cases, instant messaging even makes students more comfortable with their writing. Reports confirm 37 percent of the 17 million teens online say things in an I.M. conversation that they would not say in a face-to-face conversation. So who is making up these facts? Who is trying to tell us that because we IM we are becoming inept writers? It seems that the reports are very conflicted.

Therefore, we at THE DRAGON decided to see what Middlesex Middle School students and faculty have to say about Instant Messaging. We surveyed the school, both teachers and students, asking the students whether they 1) use IM, 2) talk in IM lingo, 3) ever included that lingo in their writing, and 4) had put the lingo into their writing.

The teachers' surveys provided a variety of responses. Out of the 26 surveys that were returned to us 14 of the teachers say that they have at one point used IM. And only 9 of them have actually received student work that had IM acronyms in them. And as for the last questions of whether it is a good idea for students to use IM there were many mixed feelings. One common opinion was that students can become very blunt and not think about how their words will make someone else feel. Our teachers feel that sometimes students can “hide” behind their computer screens because we feel that since it was said online, it doesn't “count”.

Now what to we, the students, think? We received a lot of surveys but none of them actually had any extra information or opinions, mostly just yes or no answers. But the surveys were still helpful because we could really get a feel for how many of you actually use IM. Although we could not get an actual count, we estimated that 3 in every 5 students IM. We also learned that not a lot of students have put IM lingo into their school work and for people who did , teacher reactions were not that harsh.

It seems that even with conflicting reports, instant messenger is not a deadly virus to good writing, at least at Middlesex.