Txting: the end of civilization (again)?

This paper begins with the author's recent participation in an Australian radio interview on the topic of SMS txting. It takes this as an entry point for an analysis and discussion of the discourses around txting to be found in a series of newspaper articles and taken up in the radio interview. Moving on from the initial analysis, the paper addresses some of the underlying tensions that come into play as new technologies and new literacies are taken up by young people and move with them into classrooms with existing institutional traditions around text and literacy.