no caps? no worries ... lol

A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project considers the e-communication language of teenagers:

As e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork, a new study says.

Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to the study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the College Board’s National Commission on Writing. About half said they sometimes omitted proper punctuation and capitalization in schoolwork. A quarter said they had used emoticons like smiley faces. About a third said they had used text shortcuts like “LOL” for “laugh out loud.”

“I think this is not a worrying issue at all,” said Richard Sterling, emeritus executive director of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve the teaching of writing.

When e-mail shorthand — or for that matter, slang — appears in academic assignments, Professor Sterling said, it is an opportunity for teachers to explain that while such usages are acceptable in some contexts, they do not belong in schoolwork. And as the English language evolves, he said, some e-mail conventions, like starting sentences without a capital letter, may well become accepted practice.

“I think in the future, capitalization will disappear,” said Professor Sterling, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, he said, when his teenage son asked what the presence of the capital letter added to what the period at the end of the sentence signified, he had no answer.

...

Most teenagers do not think of their e-mail messages, text messages and social network postings as “real writing,” the study found.

More than half of the teenagers surveyed had a profile on a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace, 27 percent had an online journal or blog and 11 percent had a personal Web site. Generally, girls dominated the teenage blogosphere and social networks.

Read more here (from the New York Times).  Jason Lee Miller from WebProNews also doesn't think there is much to worry about in this study:

Nothing makes parents and educators more concerned about the youth than the youth's embracing attitude of new technology; when I was a kid video games were rotting our minds, and these days it's, well, everything. A new survey from Pew Internet says, as usual, grownups may be overreacting.

All that texting, all that abbreviated nonsense you see in cell phone commercials where it seems like teenage girls are speaking an entirely different language, all that damnable leet and those emoticons—teenagers say they're well aware of the difference between electronic communication and formal writing and adjust accordingly.

Think of it this way: I speak differently when visiting my hometown than I do in Lexington, Ky. Maybe you alter your patterns, too.

Most teens (60%), according to Pew, don't think of electronic communications as "writing," which should be a relief to the purists and pessimists out there worried that their children's surest chance for success – good writing skills – is taking a backseat to a memetic and potentially short-lived subculture pidgin language.

...

Sometimes a teen's reality is duplicitous, though. Many didn't think texting and such influenced their formal writing, but did have to admit sometimes their informal styles crept into their formal schoolwork. Although 73% said e-communications had no impact on school writing, just under two-thirds admitted they improvised sometimes by using emoticons (25%), informal punctuation and grammar (50%), and abbreviations like LOL (38%).

...

The good news is that more teens than parents believe good writing is essential to their success. Eight in ten parents think so, but 86% of teens do. Maybe a few parents need a talkin-to instead. 

Read more here.

Comments

[David Jackmanson]

"I think in the future, capitalization will disappear,” said Professor Sterling, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, he said, when his teenage son asked what the presence of the capital letter added to what the period at the end of the sentence signified, he had no answer."

It provides a convenient way for the eye to recognise the start of a new sentence easily.

I'm not against an evolving language, but getting rid of caps would make things much harder to read, IMO.