Chatrooms and social websites encourage bad spelling, says study

Internet fosters belief that there is no need to correct typos or conform to rules, English Spelling Society finds
internet spelling
Social websites encourage users to abandon spelling rules, research has found. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Features

Internet chatrooms and social networking sites are encouraging children to spell words incorrectly, research suggests.



The study says: "The increasing use of variant spellings on the internet has been brought about by people typing at speed in chatrooms and on social networking sites where the general attitude is that there isn't a need to correct typos or conform to spelling rules."


The paper, which surveyed a group of 18- to 24-year-olds as part of the research, found that the majority believed that unconventional spellings are used on the internet because it is faster and has become the norm. More than one in five (22%) said they would not be confident in writing an important email without referring to a dictionary or spell checker.

Despite the widespread use of so-called "variant" spelling, almost a third (31%) of those questioned said that alternative non-standard spellings were "unacceptable". Two thirds (66%) believe that dictionaries should contain variant spellings.
