Texting is for phones and whatever gizmos you text off of. Texting is not meant to be put in stories, even if you don’t slang or put repeated smiley faces. Sure, your character can text- there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s really unnecessary to spell out every word or winky-face that’s being sent.
The best solution: tone it down, or just omit it entirely.
For example: “Emily texted her sister, letting her know that she’d be late.” Is far less distracting and goes for better reading than: “hey, ima b late.” “kk get here soon (: ”
Do you see what I mean? You can say what the texters talk about without having to say everything in ‘text mode’.
Example:
“Emily texted her sister, letting her know that she’d be late. Her sister responded with a calm, patient answer that let Emily know that she had no need to rush.”
I know for a fact that a lot of readers will absolutely not read a story if it has texting in it (the slanged kind, not my examples). I’m also one who will refuse to read a story like such. Honestly, if you just tone it down, you’ll get readers that won’t drop your story as soon as they see “heyy wrud? ;)”