An Exploration of the Pros and Cons of the Text Message Communication System

The text message communication system is one modern electronic medium of communication that is systematically transforming written communication. It has both the positive and the negative sides just like that of the electricity current. The positive side of the text message communication simply refers to its pros, that is, its advantages, merits or benefits. The negative side of the text message communication refers to its cons, that is, its disadvantages, demerits or shortcomings. This paper explores the pros of text message communication by analysing how it saves time, reduces cost, aids articulate feedback, ensures convenient response, serves as legal evidence, encourages bold reply, functions as a forensic tool, represents a more health-friendly medium and guarantees confidentiality. The paper equally examines the cons of text message communication by explicating how it can aid crime, be used to defraud, implicate message sender when not deleted, be vague/ambiguous because of its abbreviated language, be delivered late when events have overtaken message sent, be reduced in length and rendered incomplete when message is lengthy, be limited in use to literate people only, be used to perpetrate examination malpractices and be responded to late when the receiver has a busy or tight schedule.