Despite their best intentions, teens in our survey do admit to using conventions from their electronic communications in their school writing. Half (50%) of teens say they sometimes use informal writing styles in the writing they perform in school, 38% have used shortcuts from instant messaging or email, and 25% have used emoticons in their school writing. Overall, nearly two-thirds of teens (64%) incorporate some informal styles from their text-based communications into their writing at school.

Since much of the writing teens do at school (such as writing in a journal, taking notes in class, or crafting creative fiction) is relatively informal in nature, it is not necessarily surprising to find teens adopting the conventions from texting, email or other online speech into their writing for school. With that said, certain groups of teens are more likely to utilize these conventions in their school writing than others.

While teen bloggers and social network users are prolific writers, they also have a tendency to use text shortcuts, emoticons and informal writing styles in their school writing. Similarly, teen cell phone owners are significantly more likely to use text shortcuts in school (42% do this) compared with non-cell phone owners (30%).

Teens who communicate regularly with their friends through a wide range of communications channels are more likely than less “communicative” teens to incorporate informal or technology-related elements into their school writing. The more types of personal daily communications teens engage in with friends, the more likely they are to incorporate these conventions into the writing they do at school.

Usage of different communications methods outside of school is not the only factor correlated with usage of technology-based writing conventions in school—attitudinal factors play a role as well. In particular, teens who view their electronic communications with friends as “writing” are significantly more likely than teens who do not view these communications as writing to use informal writing styles (59% vs. 47%), text shortcuts (56% vs. 34%) and emoticons (39% vs. 19%) in a school environment.

Among demographic groups, girls are more likely than boys to use text shortcuts from IM or email (45% vs. 33%) and emoticons (35% vs. 17%). Black teens (48%) are more likely than whites (35%) to use text shortcuts in school, although there are no racial or ethnic differences with respect to usage of informal writing styles or emoticons. Finally, among children of college graduates, just over half (54%) use at least one of these elements in their writing for school; this is a significantly lower rate than for children of parents with some college education (67% of whom use at least one of these techniques), or for children of parents with no college experience (71%).

Teens in our focus groups acknowledged the movement of text-based slang into their school work, but also suggested that learning not to use the slang is a part of the maturation process. They also took this issue one step further by pointing out that not only had text message slang and informal language crept into their formal school work, but it had also infiltrated spoken language for some teens.

. . . [S]ince I was a sophomore in high school I have seen some changes.  I saw some under classman in the hallway saying OMG where is my classroom or LOL and you know I was like, “OK, they are going to have to work through that.”
– 11/12^th Grade Girl, Pacific Northwest City.

As you get older you develop and you learn that publicly it isn’t a good idea to use text message slang.  It may influence people to think things about you.  It will give the wrong impression of you.
– 11/12^th Grade Girl, Pacific Northwest City.

I can speak very well, but there are also times that I have been laughing and actually said LOL.  So it all depends on how much you text and who you are around at the time.
– 11/12^th Grade Girl, Pacific Northwest City.

. . . [I]f people are going to think that the way we type on the internet is going to corrupt the way we write like for school, it’s just because those people don’t want to write normally and they’re not going to if they don’t want to.
– 9/11^th Grade Girl, Southwestern City.