The ivory tower folks have been warning us about this. That if we keep on going the way we are, the damage and destruction will last for untold generations.

Global warming? Feh. Nothing compared to the dangers of text messaging. Here’s the latest warning flag. According to a Reuters story:

The rising popularity of text messaging on mobile phones poses a threat to writing standards among Irish schoolchildren, an education commission says.

The frequency of errors in grammar and punctuation has become a serious concern, the State Examination Commission said in a report after reviewing last year’s exam performance by 15-year-olds.

In 2003, Irish 15-year-olds were among the top 10 performers in an international league table of literacy standards compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

And to think, I dared to be impressed with this Cingular/AT&T commercial for capturing the latest generational version of parents and kids speaking an entirely different language:

Now, I’m not a fan of typos or dropped punctuation, even in the blogging world, where such small gaffes are not only accepted, but welcomed. But if were the Irish education board, I’d be more worried about students pasting content wholesale from random Internet websites to create their written reports. Grammar rules are the easy part. It’s the ability to think and analyze for themselves that we need our kids to learn most.

Besides, I can’t remember the last time I used the future perfect continuous tense in content or conversation.

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