Text messaging
The advancement of new technology has taken place at a rapid pace since the beginning of human history. All these modern-day advances come with various impacts. Among them are cell phones which have become a vital social tool texting has become a common platform of communication and has quickly consumed the lives of millions across the globe.
However, texting has been criticized as an informal form of communication and has several deteriorating impacts on the literacy skills of students. Because texting makes students lazy by providing instant messaging and autosuggestion features in which one tries to engage his peer during a conversation, they prefer using text to convey the message through willy-nilly sentences such as one can use “bcz” instead of “because” or “IDK” instead of “I don’t know”. Regular use of such texts makes their overall quality of work suffers. They get so used to these words that often appear in the formal school papers due to which ultimately their grades suffer. Moreover, students spend most of their time looking at their phone screens, due to this they are finding it more challenging to carry out their conversations. Being social humans, we should find it comfortable while speaking to others but due to this invention, we are so taken by the screens that we are gradually losing this ability of human interaction. For instance, students cannot interact with the teacher in the class and start taking out their headphones as the bell rings. By doing so, they lack speaking skills and cannot perform better in class and in interviews. Therefore, to tackle this issue, students should be encouraged to lessen their use of textism and instead use proper grammar while they are using texting as a form of communication.
Aijaz Ahmed
From Online
Dream of a child labour
It was midday when I met a ten-year-old boy named Sumon who was breaking bricks as he was sweating extremely under the burning sun. A few days back, I found him near an under-construction building at the capital’s Hatirpul area. “If I break bricks from dawn to dusk, I earn one hundred taka. I start my work at nine o’clock. My mother gives me some food that is my lunch. Since my father left us after marrying another woman, my mother used to work as a maid servant. I wanted to go to school but could not because of poverty,” said Sumon. His owner said, “Child labourers are better because they never raise their voice about wages and work sincerely.”
Stories like Sumon’s are very common in this city. It is painful that we are still unable to provide a safe and secure place for them to live.
Bipul K Debnath
Dhaka
