Text messaging and IM : linguistic comparison of American college data

While instant messaging (IM) via computers is well-entrenched in the United States, text messaging on mobile phones is a more recent technology in America. To investigate the emergence of American texting, this study compared text messages and IMs produced by American college students with respect to transmission length, emoticons and lexical shortenings, and sentential punctuation. We examine our findings in light of other statistical studies of texting and IM, and with respect to personal computer use in the USA that pre-dates text messaging.