KEY POINTS:
While abbreviated "text speak" may save time, it sometimes cannot be understood or is misinterpreted, new research has found.
Australian psychology lecturer Nenagh Kemp, of the University of Tasmania, tested 55 students.
Results showed that text-speak saved time for the writer, but the recipient took nearly twice as long - 26 seconds - to read the message out loud.
It took 14 seconds to read messages sent in conventional English.
The Dominion Post reported the most common abbreviations that were easily understood included 2, 4, c and u.
Most difficult included ttyl (talk to you later), bbs (be back soon), pu (pick up) and cn (seeing).
"I think that we're so accustomed to reading words spelled in conventional English, which we can read without sounding out the words, that when a spelling like frendz comes along, we have to stop and sound it out, so it slows us down, even if we get to the right answer," she told the newspaper.
- NZPA
