The science of texting as student awarded PhD in SMS

Dr Caroline Tagg spent three-and-a-half years studying SMS text messaging in order to gain a PhD at Birmingham University. Tech Blorge reports.

The 33-year-old recruited her family and friends, stored all the texts they sent and received, and analyzed their content.

Tagg read 11,000 texts sent by 235 people for a total of 190,000 words. Tagg concluded the average text contains 17.5 words and more importantly that the scaremongering about how texts are harming our language is largely unfounded.

Her 80,000-word thesis on the subject instead concluded that people use playful language in texts, and often mimic real-life conversations with expressive words and phrases.

[via The Telegraph]

emily | 8:45 AM | SMS Studies & Research |
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2009/08/024218.htm

Tweet