Is text messaging really The Death of English (LOL)? “In one British experiment last year, children who texted—and who wielded plenty of abbreviations—scored higher on reading and vocabulary tests. In fact, the more adept they were at abbreviating, the better they did in spelling and writing. Far from being a means to getting around literacy, texting seems to give literacy a boost.” Related: T9 is so book and You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.