Everyone I talk to who’s considering making the leap from a dumbphone to one of the all-singing, all-dancing smartphones, says the same thing – yes, but I don’t really need all that extra functionality … I’ll never use it … I only want to phone and text and take the odd picture. I was exactly the same; I ridiculed smartphones for being, well, too smart. And then the same thing happens to us all – we get our shiny new toy and fall hopelessly in love with it.

Suddenly, we can’t go five minutes without checking our email, seeing what everyone else is doing on Facebook and looking for the latest deals on Amazon (oh, my poor tired credit card). It’s all just so easy and convenient. We spend hours browsing the App Store (or equivalent), and our dumbphone friends tease us mercilessly (till it gets them too).

One thing I have noticed, though, is the effect it has on the language of text messages. We’ve talked before here about textspeak and how it’s influencing other areas of language, and I was discussing the possible effect on QWERTY keyboards only a couple of weeks ago.

I was aware as I was writing that, though, of the flipside; the fact that, with the rise of smartphones featuring keyboards instead of keypads, it’s often now quicker to write in more ‘normal’ English. Think about it – with the keypad, it was quicker to use numbers instead of certain words (2 for to, 4 for for etc) because you ‘typed’ by hitting the same nine keys over and over (which can be done very quickly, with practice). But with smartphones, you actually have to change mode in order to get to the numbers, so you might as well type to as change mode and type 2. (Maybe on some smartphones the numbers appear on the same screen as the letters, and this isn’t an issue, but on the iPhone they don’t.)

These uber-clever phones also take words out of your mouth (predictive texting gone mad, it sometimes seems) so there’s no need for abbreviations like tomoro, because by the time you’ve typed tomo, the blooming thing’s already finished it off for you (I still maintain, however, that when I type me, I mean me not mr – if you have an iPhone, you’ll know what I mean!).

If you’re a proper text-speak aficionado, maybe it’s different – you’re abbreviating to the point that no smartphone can predict it and switching between modes is still quicker than typing longhand. But for people like me, who were semi-users of text-speak (text-speak lite, perhaps?) the smartphone has caused an unexpected return to more formal English.

In the beginning there was the letter. Handwritten, focused, thought-provoking and sincere. Sentences would be considered, structured, and formulated in a way that could evoke any number of feelings and emotions, and it was the sort of piece that, when you finished writing, you felt content with the product in front of you: happy to send out to the intended recipient.

Then along came email, crossing the divide between speaking and writing. Dry, to-the-point – often cold – but undeniably and intrinsically useful. Business changed overnight. Expectations rose, and concentration was dispersed across an ever-increasing number of areas. No longer could the same degree of time and preparation be put into the writing, as speed was of the essence. A level of etiquette was deemed necessary when initiating correspondence via email, as, over time, people recognised that the tone could be interpreted as short or blasé.

A little later, with the invention of the mobile phone, arrived text messages. Ideal for staying in touch, whilst at the same time introducing the art form that is text language to English. A colourful combination of symbols, numbers and characters: bewildering or informative, depending on the age of the receiver.

The arrival of the blog represents an open platform ideal for creating worldwide debate, yet so liberal that many forums are called upon to censor content before posting opinions.

But the latest phenomenon seems to be Twitter, on which much has been written of late. Information sharing seems to be all the rage, regardless of whether said information is useful or not. (NB – the irony that we implement Twitter within the Macmillan Dictionary pages has not escaped me …)

But what effect has this media transformation had on the English language?

Well, where has the focus gone? Our attention today is diverted or distracted so frequently that we need to be able to show considerable levels of concentration to resist society’s constant pestering. So surely then the impact on the language is fairly stark. Would researchers and lecturers have needed to pose questions on whether grammar is really important, or should we really insist on teaching spelling, if this were not the case? Isn’t the most important aspect to get the message across?

This debate will continue for years to come, but the dividing line between written and spoken English does seem to be fading, thanks to electronic media and the speed with which our words can be conveyed. So should we sit back, feet up, and admit that it is simply the natural progression of English: like it or loathe it, there’s little that can be done? Or is it the sort of situation, as Churchill memorably remarked, ‘up with which we should not put?’