Do You Know What Your Children Are Texting?
filed in Misc on Aug.26, 2010
There was an interesting article on CNN today about the lingo the kids (anyone younger than me!) are using to shorten their text entries. Some of the abbreviations are easy to decipher, e.g., ‘gr8′ means ‘great’, ‘ttyl’ means ‘talk to you later’, and so on. However, those are by far the simplest and most innocuous of all. Kids have come up with what almost amounts to a new language, albeit a TEXT language, in their efforts to communicate rapidly. It’s truly amazing. But what is not so cool is the dark side of this phenomenon. Yes, like everything in life, it seems, this, too has a dark side. That side involves abbreviations and code used to talk about drugs, sex, and more; coded so parents, especially, won’t realize what the kids are discussing, often right under their parents’ noses.
A guy started a website a couple of years ago devoted to translating text messages for those who don’t get the lingo. So you can learn it, too, and be able to understand what is going on; you can be with-it, plus you can be informed and not totally blindsided by some creepy type trying to move in on your kids.
Here is a link to the article on CNN.
Also, click here to try out the slang translator.
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