(SHUTTERSTOCK)

OMG, it turns out that when u r texting, u r not being lazy, u r being creative.

The notion that text-messaging is eroding our language skills is a myth, say researchers from three Canadian universities who have collected and studied thousands of messages.

The text4science project is a collaboration of Simon Fraser University, Universite de Montreal and the University of Ottawa, as part of a larger international project to understand how text-speak is changing the way people communicate.

"In recent years, communication via SMS (text message) has become a social phenomenon," the project website says. "Many scientific studies (in linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication, etc.) have looked into this new medium, but their conclusions remain partial and incomplete."

Researchers asked people to send in — via text, naturally — random messages they'd saved on their phones, with the assurance that any identifying information would be removed.

They have received more than 8,000 since December.

"A lot of people think that language is degrading over time and it's just getting worse, and young people just don't know how to spell anymore," SFU professor Christian Guilbault said on News 1130. "Well, we don't think it's true."

He said the way we use language in texts proves how creative we are and that we can use English in a very specific way appropriate to the context.

For instance, the researchers found people used 10 different ways to express laughter, including three variants of "LOL," and 12 different ways to text OK.

They are still accepting messages for their ongoing study. Find out more at text4science.ca.