The Government plans to eradicate this, with the introduction of Smart Identity Cards next to passports which will have all of the information we will ever need about ourselves and to prove who we are (and also information we will probably never use) all on one card.

Information on the card:

- Your full name

- Other names by which you are or have been known

- Your date of birth

- Your place of birth

- Gender

- The address of your principal place of residence in the United Kingdom

- The address of every other place in the United Kingdom or elsewhere where you have a place of residence

- A photograph of your head and shoulders showing the features of the face

- A copy of your signature

- Your fingerprints plus other biometric information about you, eg. Iris recognition

- Residential status

- Your nationality

- Your entitlement to remain in the United Kingdom

- Where that entitlement derives from a grant of leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, the terms and conditions of that leave

- Plus various other Personal reference numbers, Security and Validation information and any important records of your history.

A good idea you would think, having all of your information with you at all times on a single piece of plastic, what possible downside could there be?

FOR identity cards: The government and supporters of the scheme argue that identity cards are necessary to prevent identity theft and reduce benefit fraud. They say that identity cards would:

- Prevent illegal immigration: Lack of a card allows illegal immigrants to arrive and disappear, according to the government.

- Prevent illegal working: Identity cards would enable employers to verify if people are allowed to work and it would be easier to prosecute employers who break the law, says the Home Office.

- Aid anti-terrorism measures: Identity cards would make it harder for terrorists and organised crime rings to use false and multiple identities, argues the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

- Tackle identity theft: A National Register with unique biometric information for each person would make fraud much harder, according to CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service.

- Reduce benefit fraud and abuse of public services: Identity cards would ensure that public services are only used by those entitled to, says the Home Office.

- Enhance sense of community: The government believes that identity cards would create a sense of shared citizenship, belonging and security.

AGAINST identity cards: Opponents argue that identity cards won’t improve security in this country. They say that identity cards would:

- Lead to loss of privacy: A massive database with an unprecedented amount of personal information would be created with giving government the power to “extend surveillance” of the population, says No2ID.

- Be costly and impractical: The true cost of the scheme is unpredictable and the Home Office has a bad track record with large-scale IT projects, says the Liberal Democrats.

- Worsen harassment of ethnic minorities: They would provide another pretext for stop-and-search, often directed at ethnic minorities, argues the civil liberties group Liberty.

- Have little impact on counter-terrorism: Terror networks could forge cards or papers enabling people to get cards, and they haven’t prevented attacks elsewhere, says Liberty.

- Have little effect on illegal working: Employers who are already willing to break the law won’t be put off by identity cards, says campaigning organisation No2ID.

- Lead to ‘function creep’: MPs on the Home Affairs Committee expressed concerns that the functions of the card could grow as it stores more personal information.

Within the space of a month I received just over three hundred text messages (it was a quiet month) and the senders were mainly people of a similar age although I did receive a few from family friends that were at least two decades older and one or two from grandparents.  As a result I had a wide and varying range people that sent texts to me during that month.  This gave me just what I wanted so that I could perform my personal research, because if I had only received text messages from people of a similar age to me I would not have been able to potentially find correlations between textisms and age.

Of the three hundred texts that I received, two hundred and eighty eight were from people that were either a similar age to me or younger.  This left around only four percent of the texts being from people who are substantially older than me which isn’t as many as would have liked but was enough to get a rough idea of whether or not they used ‘text talk’.

In the age category that included the vast majority, I found that the frequency of textisms, colloquialisms and abbreviations was extremely high with the average use of them being above 75% in each text message.  In today’s society this was not too unexpected.  Most words that are longer than four characters or more in the English dictionary were shortened where possible, for example, the word great becomes ‘gr8’ but words such as ‘least’ are harder to abbreviate and as result were left in their standard English form, bringing the average down slightly.  However, if these results are remotely accurate to those on a national scale, of the 7.7 billion texts that were sent during the month of December of 2008 around 5,775,000,000 of those included some form of non-standard English, which is an enormous amount.  This then, shows a strong correlation between the use of textisms and age for the age bracket of fourteen to twenty one.  Will it be the same for the older generation?

The answer comes as no surprise.  Of the 4% of texts that I received from people who are substantially older than me only I found that the only words that tended to be abbreviated in any way were only short and less obvious than those used by the younger people.  Examples of this are replacing words such as ‘be’ with just the letter B, ‘see’ with the letter C and ‘you’ with the letter U; it was very rare to find any other variations on other words within these texts that I received.  With all of this accounted for, textisms and non-standard English was only used in 47% of the text messages which could be interpreted as being quite a lot.  However, the use of textisms that were used within those texts fell dramatically as they were only used two or three times in texts that generally tended to be much longer than those sent by people of a younger age, bringing the frequency down to less than 10%.

To me, this is a clear indication that there is an age/generation gap in the use of text talk.  Clearly the children who are brought up with this technology tend to use their mobile phones more for texting than for ringing people unlike the older generation who have grown up with close interaction with others.  Consequently, the children who use their mobile phones everyday and more for texting, have developed a ‘second language’ that has become part of their everyday life and has grown to be part of a modern society, illustrating why they use these abbreviations more frequently those who grew up with more first hand interaction.

‘Text Talk’ as we now know it is a mixture of real words, abbreviations and a form of shorthand that includes many different numbers and letters that are combined in numerous ways to create phonetic sounds of the words we wish to write in order to use less space in our SMS messages or chat forums such as msn.  Another ‘excuse’ for this is to save time when typing messages, as if we are always in a rush to put ‘pen to paper,’ which is ironic as in my experience it is, to a large extent, people who would rather do anything but put pen to paper who communicate like this, largely youths that will even text during classes or whilst supposedly working.  Personally, unless in an emergency where time is of the essence I don’t fully understand why it is used to save time…but that’s just me!

However I do see how it is relevant for space saving in SMS messages where there are only 160 characters available to you, this is where ‘text talk’ really comes into its own and actually becomes quite useful whether we like it or not; and I believe it is a fundamental reason for its development and increasing popularity and recognition as the way to text in today’s world.  It seems that the majority of people use at least some form of abbreviation or shorthand in their text messages and chat forums, whether it’s consciously or unconsciously, almost as if that’s what they were invented for (though we know that texts and instant messaging simply stimulated its use) and it is understood on wide scale that that is how messages are sent and received via these mediums.  It is a wonder then, that with the extreme numbers of people who communicate with one another in such a way were most words only vaguely represent the actual word or even a sentence, that people can repress it, whether consciously or unconsciously, for use of the correct English language and scholastic grammar that is required for most everything else in working life, this begs the question: can people go from one ‘language’ to another without even thinking about it when demand changes and what effect does it have, if any, on the people that do this?

As I started this blog I decided to roughly find out how true this is, I would wait until the end of the month before going through my own text messages, take a note of the name and age of the sender and record the frequency that ‘text talk’ words were used and potentially I could find any correlations between the amounts used ( if any ) and the ages of the senders to find out if its an age thing as I suspect it may be in most cases.  The results will be posted on  the next blog when all information has been collected.

Some fairly simple and well known examples of these are:

- LOL “Laughing out loud”

- OMG “Oh my god”

- THNX “Thanks / Thank you”

- Y? “Why?”

- CBA “Can’t be arsed”

- ATM “At the minute / moment”

- WOT “What”

Other more complex and less obvious examples are:

- 831 “I Love You”  (8 letters, 3 words, 1 Meaning)

- IMSB “I am so bored”

- AFAIK “As far as I know”

- BBIAM “Be back in a minute”

- XD “Really hard laugh”

These latter examples seem like a code and aren’t very obvious in any way shape or form, at least not to most people; so these I assume, are used only when the sender knows that the recipient will be able to understand and translate it otherwise it makes the whole idea of saving time and space extremely pointless and futile.  I can get my head around the ones such as OMG and ATM as they are fairly obvious and a quicker way of getting across what you would actually like to say, but there are also some that seem quite worthless…it does not take much effort to type the word ‘why?’ and yet there is still a shorthand for it (‘Y?’) also with ‘Thanks,’ the abbreviated shorthand for it is only two characters shorter, to me it is just laziness BUT it is unavoidable as evolution is unstoppable and people will always tend to take the easier option.  The argument that I have heard for this is that if you save at least one character per word, and your message is thirty characters long you will have saved enough characters for an extra five or six words OR nine to ten abbreviated words, so “every little helps” apparently.  For example, if I had to write this sentence in text talk it would roughly translate to this, ‘If I ad 2rite dis sentnce in txt tlk it wud rufly transl8 2dis’ with a complete saving of sixteen characters which in my humble opinion is good for nothing as you can’t do a great deal with sixteen characters so you might as well write properly when space is not an issue.

A good yet comedic example of what I have been trying to explain is in the Ali G In Da House film that was released in 2002 in a scene where he sends the text message: ‘Lnk cr B82rez 2g4 which is meant to say ‘Link the car batteries together,’ however quite predictably the recipient of this text doesn’t have a clue what it is meant to say as only Ali G can decipher the code as it were, rendering the text useless and the whole idea of time saving senseless as he has to then ring the recipient and explain what the text was meant to say; showing that everybody’s interpretations differ and may not be understood, it is like each individuals own language.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJpy6PoiRwg

However, there may well be people that are naturally more able to read these texts than others.  No not those that sit and send hundreds of texts everyday and have consequently become used to it but people that have a natural ability.  I have come across something that circulated on the internet quite intensely in 2003 that is linked to reading and linguistics, though I admit I am unable to find how accurate this is so I am simply mentioning this as a bit of fun for you to try out.  The meme was that any word is readable as long as the first and last letters of the word remain as the first and last respectively, the other letters can be placed anywhere else.  The message that circulated went roughly as follows, ‘if yuo can raed tihs, you hvae a sgtrane mnid, too.  I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.’  There is a website that I’ve found that has more information on this:

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/ As I was able to read this without any trouble at all and have found many others who can do the same, it made me wonder whether text talk is all that different to this? If we can read this then surely some simple abbreviations are no trouble at all, which led me to wondering if texting is as harmful to us as some people fear it is?

There is also the argument that we have communicated in code throughout history using everything from smoke signals to Morse Code, the telegram and even conventional shorthand that was used by a cross section of people for many different needs, one of them being the simple task of writing in a diary; therefore ‘text talk’ is in no way a new form of communication, it is simply a new way to use it.  Until the arrival of the text message in the public domain in 1992, there was little concern about the destructive effect these systems might have on ‘proper’ written English even though they were similar and had been used for decades prior.  So why is there such controversy surrounding it and the effect it has on peoples education? Specifically their literacy skills?  I cannot answer the reason for why people think what they think about it, I can only surmise why and where these feelings may have come from but I can give arguments either for or against them along with the evidence that I have found to back them up.

It is an issue that has been raised by both parents and teachers that texting the way most of us do, using abbreviated words to mimic their phonetic sounds, can only have a harmful effect upon us, especially the younger generation who can be more prone to taking in this sort of information and using it in return without having to even think about it as it becomes inherent due to the amount it is used in their daily lives.  The natural presumption and worry for parents and teachers is that this way of communicating and writing will start to prevail and erode their educational grammar and literacy that has been enforced into them from an early age, thus presumably having a negative and harmful effect upon them, but more worryingly for parents one that shows no sign of letting up as mobile phones, text messaging and chat forums seem to be getting ever popular as a way of life nowadays, this is obviously a cause for concern…that is, if there is any proof to back it up?

There have been numerous research groups focusing on this subject and conducting studies to try to gain empirical results that will either prove or disprove the theory/presumption that texting or using ‘textisms’ is bad for us.  Though I shall only concentrate on and provide the evidence gained in two studies that were done by the Department of Communication and Science at the City University in London and researchers at Coventry University.  The researchers at Coventry University have conducted a study on children aged between 10 and 12 years to explore how the use of text abbreviations might be related to the skills children need in reading and writing.  They did this by firstly quizzing the children about their use of mobile phones where it was discovered, quite unsurprisingly, that children use their mobile phones more for sending text messages than for talking, therefore using ‘text talk’.  Secondly the children were asked to translate messages between standard English and text language (most were phonetically based), as well as complete tasks to reveal their English writing, reading and spelling abilities so as to cover the full range of literacy.  The children involved in the study were given 10 different scenarios and asked to write about them using text messages.  The “textisms” were split into categories, including shortenings, contractions, acronyms, symbols and non-conventional spellings, and analysed for their use of language alongside more traditional schoolwork.  Surprisingly the results show that contrary to popular belief the study found no evidence of a detrimental effect of text talk on conventional spelling, yet possibly more surprisingly it also found that children who use their mobile phones the most and that do use “textisms” were better at spelling and writing and even show increased reading scores.  The studies relevance to the notion of language and learning is: ‘no matter the form, meaningful exposure to language assists language learning’.  According to Dr. Beverley Plester who was the study’s lead author and Senior lecturer at Coventry University, “the more exposure you have to the written word the more literate you become and we tend to become better at things we do for fun”.  These studies were in conjunction with research from the University of Toronto who looked into how teenagers use instant messaging; equally they found that instant messaging had a positive effect on their command of language.  To summarise the work of the researchers at Coventry University: Claims that the use of mobile phones and texting along with instant messaging on chat forums have a negative and potentially harmful effect on reading, writing and spelling is an unfounded one, it does NOT harm your literacy skills.  In fact, Dr Plester has stated that the researchers at Coventry University are now interested into looking at whether texting could be used positively to increase phonetic awareness in less able children, and perhaps increase their language skills.  Equally, a wave of colleges and universities are integrating text messages into courses as a learning tool. Some of this is based on the notion that not every student is as confident as the next and asking questions during a lecture can be intimidating. There is always the fear of looking stupid that crosses the mind, or worrying that your question has already been answered, but you missed that bit. A current example can be seen in a university in Nottingham that have incorporated texting to enable students to text their lecturer with questions throughout the duration of the lesson. The questions can be texted to a dedicated number and appear automatically on a message board in real time. This has this allowed some students to overcome their shyness and reservations about asking questions, often to the benefit of everyone else in the room, though many would not admit it!  Technology is likely to continue to transform the way that students learn. Blackboards have been replaced with interactive whiteboards, text books are supplemented with endless information provided by the internet, discussion is encouraged through online forums and coursework can be submitted with the click of a button. Text messages have the advantage that they can be received at any time of the day in any location. Trials are currently underway with a university to send multiple choice questions via text message, which students have to immediately reply to. Their responses would then count, in part, towards their final grade.

Researchers at City University in London conducted similar tests on children that were roughly the same age as those in the Coventry University tests and came to the conclusion that their analysis found ‘no significant differences between children that do text using textisms and children that do not,’ though this does not tell of any positive effects it may have as in the Coventry results it does still outline the fact that texting should cause no reason for concern when on the issue of education and literacy skills as it is similar to childrens ability to “code switch”, or move between modes of communication; a classic and well represented example of this can be a childs ability to effortlessly slip between playground slang and visit-the-grandparents politeness, it is second nature to them, they don’t even have to think about it.  A more obvious example could be bi-lingual children who possibly have to cope with parents of different nationalities, their ability to switch between languages is baffling to most yet to them it is all they know and does not seem strange or cause difficulty to them.  However, the researches did find that the pupils familiar with text messaging wrote significantly less when asked to describe a picture or an event than those who did not use mobiles, potentially adding to the apparently unfounded concerns of parents and teachers that the quality and expressiveness of children’s writing could be at risk even if their spelling is not.

Despite this, comparisons of exam papers for 16 year olds from 1980 and 2005 carried out by Cambridge University revealed that pupils are now more literate than ever before and writing abilities have never been higher.  The study did find that nowadays textisms, colloquialisms and non-standard English had crept their way into exam papers and are ten times more likely to be used than in 1980, even by some of those who received the highest grades but overall their literacy showed a marked improvement.  Results of the study show pupils of today are using far more complex sentence structures, a wider vocabulary and a more accurate use of capital letters, punctuation and spelling.  According to the head of evaluation and validation at Cambridge Assessment, “pupils who achieved grade C in GCSEs last year had better vocabulary than those who scored a grade B in 1980.”

To conclude, it seems to me that, taking all of this information into account, texting and the evolution of ‘text talk’ provides little to no cause for concern for parents and teachers over the suspected negative effects that it may have on people, especially children.  Research clearly indicates that the 7.7 billion text messages that were sent in a single month in 2008, with 13 – 17 year olds each sending on average 2900 of them a month, will not harm any of us in any way, shape or form but may actually lend a helping hand to some of us and improve our comprehension and skills in reading, writing and spelling.  In my opinion, the only negative or harmful effects that come from texting, social networking and chat forums is when they are misused and/or abused by people that intend to cause harm or danger to others; but using them for the reasons they were intended can only be a good thing.