Webspeak: The Secret Language of Teens

Jan. 25, 2007 — -- If, like most teens today, your child spends hours sending text messages from his phone and instant messages from his computer, you probably have overheard phrases like "LOL" or "BRB," without understanding what they meant.

Web lingo is a quick, fun way for kids to communicate using cell phones and computers, and, with 14 million teens texting regularly, it's the new social currency. For example, almost any teen or tween knows that "BRB" means "be right back" and that "TTYL" is "talk to you later."

But now, the use of slang and abbreviations is not limited just to e-mails, text messages or instant messages. It is showing up in kids' schoolwork, in their SAT essays and in college admission applications.

Sara Goodman, who teaches high school English and journalism at Clarksburg High in Clarksburg, Md., said she worries that this new language will compromise students' ability to write and to communicate.

"Most of these kids started using IM when they were between the ages of 8 and 10," Goodman said. "So they learned it when they were learning the other grammar rules."

Learning Webspeak at the same time, then, means kids focus on the grammatical form that they use more often, which is IM and text-message abbreviations, Goodman said.

"I have definitely seen an increase in this type of shorthand. They're using it pretty much everywhere. It's just seeped into their daily language."

Webspeak is so ingrained in most students' communication skills that they inadvertently use the language all the time, even where it might be inappropriate.

"I've been texting so much that I wrote the letters 'u-r' instead of 'y-o-u-r' and the letter 'r' instead of the word 'are,'" said Michelle Sloan, a Clarksburg High freshman, of a paper she wrote for school. "My teacher came up to me and told me my mistake, and I felt kind of stupid."

Michelle's mother, Kathy Sloan, said she is concerned about being clueless about this new language.

"I feel cut off from Michelle with all this texting and IMing," Sloan said. "You don't know what they're saying to each other; you don't know what's being discussed."