Texting: Its Uses, Misuses, and Effects

Abstract

Texting has become the preferred form of communication for many people around the world, especially teenagers and young adults. While texting allows individuals to communicate anywhere at any time, its accessibility also makes people prone to misuse the technology. This article attempts to synthesize the body of research on texting accumulated during the last decade, with a particular emphasis on the areas that have sparked the greatest debates regarding its use—education and learning, health, language and literacy, privacy and security, social relationships, text-bullying, and traffic safety. Other controversial mobile phone uses associated with texting, such as sexting, have been excluded from this article because of their increasing dependence on multi-media messaging services (MMS) and applications focused on sharing images, videos, and audio files beyond simple text. The article concludes with an assessment of the place of short message service (SMS) in the current mobile communication landscape and directions for future research.