CMC - Text messaging

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122530875/HTMLSTART

I read an article that discussed texting behaviors among teen and preteen children in the UK and the US. In 2007 the number of text messages sent and received surpassed the number of phone calls made and received. I found it very interesting that in Britain in August of 2007 nearly 4000 text messages were sent a second, and 5 billion were sent during the entire month. The article continued to discuss academics compared to text message rates. They talked about the phonetics that are used to create "text speak" and how children shorted words to be able to put everything they want to say in 160 characters. It is found that children who are using more textisms were those with higher scores on the verbal reasoning tasks on standardized tests. I found this very interesting because I know when I was in high school teachers always complained about text language because they said they were tired of it showing up in papers and reports that they graded.