My parents constantly tell me I’m growing up in the digital age. They always say, “When I was your age…” followed by some complaint about having to use encyclopedias and home phones. My mom and dad still have the letters they wrote each other while they were dating throughout college. To them texting, Skyping, and Face timing wasn’t a possibility. While most people look upon these things as perks, they should also be seen as problems. It’s clear to see the advantages of texting, but what should be equally as obvious are the disadvantages.

One of the worst consequences we see with texting today is the number of car crashes caused by people who think they can operate a motor vehicle while operating a cell phone simultaneously.

“In 2011 23% of car accidents were caused by the use of cell phones.”

Because our generation constantly has our cell phones with us, there’s a strong temptation to reply the minute we receive a message. It’s not that we haven’t been educated. Everyone seems to know the harm texting and driving can cause, however we all think those consequences will just be things we hear about in the news and won’t actually happen to us.

“43% of teenagers text and drive even though they know it’s wrong.”

With this mindset and the increase of people engaging in texting everyday the percentages of crashes due to text messages are not only going stay the same, but might even increase. New apps are being created everyday, causing not only the temptation to text and drive but navigate these apps, thus leading to even more crashes.

With SMS (Short Messaging Service) becoming an everyday activity and formal writing becoming a scarcity, it is likely to believe that teenager’s language skills are weakening as well. We should be impressed with the advances in technology, but we should not become dependent on them. Because texts are short hand messages, we disregard correct punctuation and grammar rules. While that may be acceptable for a quick conversation, those habits are rolling over into adolescent’s writing skills. We have also become so dependent on “autocorrect” — iPhone’s own way of automatically fixing spelling errors — that most teenagers don’t know how to spell some common words.

After a study dealing with middle schools students, Drew Cingel, a former undergraduate student at Penn State, said

“Overall, there is evidence of a decline in grammar scores based on the number of adaptations in sent text messages, controlling for age and grade.”

It’s strange to think as technology is advancing, adolescents are starting to slack. However as shortcuts and autocorrect are increasing, intelligence is doing the opposite.

It’s not just writing skills that are declining, but also direct communication skills. Whether it’s a fact or not, it should be unsettling that people spend more time texting those they aren’t with rather than talking to the people they are with. In an interview with Lynn Willis, mother and psychologist, she stated, “Just 10 years ago you’d never seen anything like this. Kids texting at the dinner table. Couples texting on dates. Adults texting while driving. It’s sad.” It’s also taking away from quality time spent with families, such as family dinners or reunions. She went on to say, “…kids who don’t spend quality time with their parents away from their cell phones end up getting into more trouble. It’s proven that kids who have a good relationship with their parents tend to cause less disorder. Texting is taking away from this.”

Other issues that may arise from youth focusing on texting instead of communicating in person are job interviews and other formal meetings. When you don’t get experience talking formally with others face-to-face, these communication skills may suffer. Texting causes people to have a hard time engaging, and may cause people to scan their phone because they feel they have nothing better to do. According to a Pew Institute survey, the number of text messages sent monthly in the U.S. exploded from 14 billion in 2000 to 188 billion in 2010, and the trend shows no signs of abating. Most don’t view this as important. However, just because this idea doesn’t come from an educational or safety standpoint, it is still an issue that should be considered.

With an increase in technology comes an increase in resources. It’s incredible that today with a click of a button you can search hundreds of thousands of websites to find information on just about anything. Only a couple of years ago you could just find information through books and even then the information was limited. However, with today’s benefits also come losses. Communication skills both in person and in writing have downgraded tremendously and on an even bigger scale, texting leads to an increase in fatal car crashes.