Grammar may be dying. As an English teacher reads a student’s essay, it becomes evident that the current generation of teens are significantly lacking in the grammatical area. This can be attributed to many factors, such as the rise of social media, the increase in texting, and the adaptation of how teens speak.

Society has adapted to a hyper-casual way of communicating due to the advent of texting. Utilizing emojis, acronyms, and other fast-paced digital communication tactics, students have become less fixated on being grammatically correct.

Teens seem to have lost sight of following grammatical rules as society has adapted to understand current communication. Methods have changed drastically with the age of information, and the grammar rules created over the last few centuries can’t seem to keep up.

“When I text my friends, I don’t really care about using the right grammar. All that matters is that  I get my point across as quickly as possible which usually means I’m not using correct grammar,” said junior Charles C.

This further exemplifies the viewpoint shared by many current teens. People now care far more about convenience, leaving some of the more tedious grammar rules feeling obsolete. 

Another issue related to the depreciation of teens’ grammar is the decrease in the isolated focus of grammar.

“Most of a student’s grammar skills come from elementary and middle school meaning that as high schoolers, they still have very baseline grammatical dexterity,” said 11th-grade IB Language and Literature teacher Courtney Palazzo.

This may be do to the fact that the education system has also attempted to adapt to the current methods of communication.

“I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve been given a grammar lesson, maybe middle school,” said junior Jaden L.

This could be a cause of why so many students preparing for standardized testing find themselves struggling to understand the grammar section.

Some may believe that grammar does not hold the same importance as it once did. If the necessary message gets across, following rules created for language hundreds of years ago seems unnecessary.

Although valid, this opinion could be ignorant to the fact that correct grammar benefits a writer tremendously past high school. 

“What you have to say will be most important, but formatting, spelling, and grammar are equally important. After all, almost all jobs require strong communication skills and a sharp attention to detail,” said writer Alison Doyle, in an article for Career Tool Belt.

Being able to express correct grammar in one’s writing can make them seem more trustworthy and intelligent and are key skills that employers look for in individuals, which should be motivation enough to revisit this ‘lost’ art.🔳