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Note: This article is from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph:
(By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles, Telegraph.co.uk) – A teenage girl who sends an average of 8,000 text messages a month [about 260 a day] has been crowned the texting champion of the United States.
Morgan Pozgar, 13, clinched the title with a quickfire error-free rendition of “supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you’ll always sound precocious.”
The teenager, from Claysburg, Pennsylvania, was awarded the top prize of $25,000 (£12,500) at the contest in New York after beating 250 competitors from across the country.
In the semi-final Morgan beat Michael “Cheeser” Nguyen, a 23-year-old engineer from Pennsylvania, who said: “I just wasn’t fast enough. I just got beaten by a teenage girl, but you know.”
In the tense final, Morgan at first seemed to have been beaten by 21-year-old Eli Tirosh, who put down her mobile phone first, only for the judges to rule that she had made a typing error.
Morgan later revealed she trained by sending on average 8,000 text messages a month to her friends – about one every five minutes or 260 a day. She pays $10 a month for an unlimited texts on her phone.
The teenager said she would spend her prize money shopping in Manhattan.
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from the Telegraph. Visit the website at telegraph.co.uk.
Questions
Today’s article is a little unusual in that we will not be asking any comprehension questions. Answer the following questions and be prepared to discuss in class.
Some of the questions adults might ask after reading this article are:
–how does a 13 year old pay attention in school or get homework done when sending a new text message every 5 minutes?
–how is this skill in any way beneficial to a teenager?
What do you think? Is Morgan’s victory as texting champion of the U.S. a good thing (she’s only 13; she beat out 20-year olds, etc.) or a cause for concern (she spends way too much texting to the detriment of all else)?
First, answer the questions below:
–Do you have your own cell phone?
–Do you think every teenager should have their own cellphone? Explain your answer.
–Does texting make students more or less literate, or have no effect one way or the other?
–If you do text message friends, how often each day/week do you do so?
–What are the benefits of being an expert text messager?
–What are the drawbacks of spending most of your time text messaging?
–What skills could a teenager develop from texting?
–What skills could a teenager lack from spending a lot of time texting?
–Why would excessive texting be a cause for concern among teachers? among parents? Are their concerns reasonable? Explain your answer.
Daily “Answers” emails are provided for Daily News Articles, Tuesday’s World Events and Friday’s News Quiz.
