Truth in Advertising

While text messaging may allow us to communicate more quickly, it could derail our ability to learn new words, according to research from University of Calgary.

A group of students was asked about their texting habits and then presented with both familiar and unfamiliar words. Those who texted more were more likely to skip over the new words, rather than try to understand them. "Those who accepted more words did so because they were better able to interpret the meaning of the word, or tolerate the word, even if they didn't recognize the word," says Joan Lee, who conducted the study for her master's thesis in linguistics. "Students who reported texting more rejected more words instead of acknowledging them as possible words."

According to Lee, texting doesn't seem to restrict our current vocabularies, but it does appear to keep us from expanding them, a finding that surprised her "because there are many unusual spellings or 'textisms' such as 'LOL' in text-messaging language." Of course, IOHO, txting in moderation is always a gr8 idea. :)