There once was a time before spell check or smart phones were around. A time that you had to be knowledgeable about grammar and spelling to communicate properly through letters or texts with each other without looking ignorant. Nowadays you have spell check on any computer, predict-a-text or auto-correct to help you out with your spelling and grammar. There are many benefits that come with these programs but are they also hindering future generations?
1. Spelling – These advances in technology are helping people spell words that they normally might not be able to figure out. In addition to correcting the spelling, on most smart phones people can program shortcuts in and type a letter or two and have a phrase pop up. The spell check will correct the words that are written that do not have the correct apostrophes as well.
2. Grammar – The spell check function on most technology will point out fragments or run-ons and keep the writer from making grammatical errors. It will also point out comma errors or incorrect spacing in sentences.
3. Text Talk – The newest fad in typing is text talk, a version of shorthand to communicate with each other via text or email. With the glossary of shorthand texts expanding each day, is this dumbing down our society? When people are socializing in public will they still have anything to talk about when they use short hand for most of their conversation and that’s how they think now? Text talk might be easy but is it dooming our future just like spell check?
4. Common Mix-ups – The spell check and all of the other similar programs of today may help some people but it cannot differentiate between words such as there, their or they’re. These words are so commonly switched up and the generation of today does not even know the difference. Just like the two words you’re and your. There is a huge difference between all these words and people don’t know what context to use each of these words in. Your wrong… Their here… It’s a common occurrence in daily lives. The auto correct and predict a text will not fix these errors. Therefore, these programs are not helping everyone. Our society is doomed for the future if we don’t figure out the correct way to speak or write. Most are relying on the use of predict a text, spell check or auto correct to correct their errors when it is so much than that.
These advances have served their purpose for the occasional accidental typo, but is it such a great idea to use it for our daily lives? Stripping our future generations of the need to use their brain versus letting a computer or phone tell them how to spell, how to grammatically fix their sentences or using short hand to communicate; is our future doomed? Is spell check and text speech laziness or convenience? We will have to wait and see what the future holds.
This post is contributed by Christine Maddox. Currently she is pursuing her Master’s degree from University of Texas as well as blogging for www.4nannies.com. She loves to write anything related to parenting, kids, nanny care etc. She can be reached via email at: christine.4nannies@gmail.com.
