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Jason Acoba

McGriff

ENC1101

3/23/2020

Communication Skills In The Digital Age

Communication in our digital age is changing the way we write, talk, and interact, and

not for the better. The digital age is moving fast, so fast that our language is in an odd state

trying to catch up with. Texting is changing the way we write to each other. People don’t

interact face to face much anymore. Most people are addicted to their phones. This new age of

digital communication is changing the world around us with texting, declining face to face

communication skills, and addiction to smartphones.

There are some people in the world that say the new digital age and what comes with it

is good. There are people who say that texting is the most convenient way to communicate and

that texting is a convenient logical wave of the future. David crystal has stated that “text

communicated by pagers were replaced by text messages” (900). In my opinion the digital age

is acceptable and has some value. Texting sometimes is more convenient than calling, such as

when people are in a class or working. John McWhorter has said that "texting is developing its

own kind of grammar." ("Is Texting Killing the English Language?"). My belief is that the digital

age of communication is hurting the English language. Texting is one of the new big things that

defines this digital age and I feel that it is overrated. Although you could say I'm wrong with less
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digital communication and texting our language would be less funky because texting slang is

stupid.

Some believe that people are able to communicate more with digital communication

worldwide. Digital communication enables people all across the world to communicate with

each other on a whim and in an instant. With this new technology one might think that people

are able to communicate with each other greatly. “Too many online exchanges end up being

not true conversations but a series of statements without clear relationships to one another”

(Graff 167). In my opinion this new technology is hurting people and the way they

communicate. People don’t interact face to face much anymore and many people are lost in a

face to face interaction. The art of face to face communication is being lost because of the

reliance on digital communication.

Smartphones are useful in our day to day lives because being able to communicate

across the world in an instant is good. It is also thought that smartphones are a key tool and

useful to everyday life. In my opinion I think that the use of smartphones is greatly exaggerated.

There is utility in having a computer with you at all times, but I think the addiction to phones is

hurting us as a people more. The smartphone addiction is hurting our species and our English

language.

The digital age is bad news. Texting takes a lot more time to communicate and language

is skewed by it as people care less about punctuation and grammar and this makes it harder to

understand emotion. People don't talk face to face anymore and are losing the skills to do so

because of the digital communication. People are addicted to thier phones, never wanting to be
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without them and using them to look at nothing most of the time. By limiting your texting,

communicating face to face, and limiting smartphone use we can keep the English language

alive!

Works Cited

Crystal, David. “2B Or Not 2B?” EVERYONE'S AN AUTHOR, W W NORTON, 2020, pp 900.

McWhorter, John. “Is Texting Killing The English Language?” Time, Time, 25 Apr. 2013,

time.com/.

Graff, Gerald. They Say I Say. Norton, 2019, pp. 167

W.C. 614