The Impact of Social Media on Language

In Michaela Cullington’s article “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she addresses a superstition that the older generation of today believes to be a possible issue. This issue is the potential for texting via cell phones to negatively affect young peoples’ abilities to write correct, formal papers. In her writing, she logically dismissed these accusations by providing proof against this believe while presenting her defense in a persuasive manner.

We as a society are evolving with each generation to come. We are getting stronger, faster, and smarter. Just as cell phones are no longer square blocks with numbers on them and TV’s are not in black and white, writing itself has also evolved. Once upon a time many wrote and spoke in a Shakespearean form of language and over the years it has evolved into something we call modern English. In recent years, technology has advanced greatly and cell phones have become one of our primary use of communication. With cell phones came a new form of writing called text messaging. Text messaging is used to send short, concise messages to anyone around the world. Often times text messages involve the use of abbreviations which stand for different things and also involves frequent use of emoji’s as a form of expression. This form of writing is now considered informal writing and is not acceptable in academic settings. In Michaela Cullington’s essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?” she touches on both sides of whether texting is hindering students writing or if it’s actually having a positive effect. She then makes is clear that she believes most students are educated enough to know when text speak is appropriate and when it’s not so therefore it has no effect on students. Although, I agree with her thesis, she lacks credibility due to her insufficient evidence. In addition, I also believe

Firstly, students are not getting enough practice in writing and it is taking away their ability to write. In Source G, Clive Thompson mentions “Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays.” (Source G). Since schools have switched over to more of an engaging learning environment, rather than formal essay writing, students are not getting enough writing practice which results in poor understanding of the English language. Secondly, teens are misusing the English language via texting, social statuses, blogs, etc. In Source G, Clive Thompson states “texting has dehydrated language into ‘bleak, bald, sad shorthand’…An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?” (Source G). Thompson believes teens are slowly drifting away from the formal English language and are creating their own shorthand meanings. This highly emphasizes how the younger generation is misusing the English language and it is taking away their ability to formally write and they are falsely practicing the English language. Thus, technology is taking away one’s ability to write formally and acknowledge the roots of the English

Not So Fast,” Andrea Lunsford argues that rather than leading to a new illiteracy, the digital technologies in the modern world help students to develop their ability of writing. Not only that students are daferrors than 25 years ago, actually with less spelling errors. In order to help students with the challenges, the teacher should offer solid instructions and encouragement rather than derision.

Communication has been permanently changed by social media. A wide conceptual definition of social media, as cited in Ressler & Glazer (2010), is “The online and mobile accessible services that enable individuals to connect, collaborate, and share with others in real time.” Social media has an obvious influence on informal communication style and represents both possibility and liability for healthcare institutions. As cited in Bernhardt, Alber, & Gold (2014), “Social media provide healthcare professionals with tools to share information, to debate health care policy and practice issues, to promote health behaviors, to engage with the public, and to educate and interact with patients, caregivers, students, and colleagues.” It also presents challenges, including risks to information accuracy, organizational reputation, and individual privacy. Social media can be a very helpful in communicating among nurses and other healthcare providers while creating professional connections, and sharing experiences, but guidelines for appropriate use by healthcare providers are essential. Whether or not certain healthcare organization decides to use social media as a communications tool - social media policy still need to be implemented. Policies help establish an organization 's rules and expectations around social media.

There has been claims that texting can adversely affect students’ formal writing skills. Michaela Cullington, author of “Does Texting Affect Writing”, responds to these claims by saying that texting does not affect students’ formal writing but helps them improve it. She mentions that texting teaches students’ how to write concisely, students’ know that textspeak is only appropriate when texting and not when writing formally, and that texting allows students’ to have a casual setting to practice their writing which help improve their formal writing. All of Cullington’s arguments are invalid; texting does harm students’ formal writing in multiple ways such as: writing texts “concisely” is not beneficial since students will forget how to expand

Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, sad shorthand” (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland has moaned).” (Source 7) this quote says that technology is to blame for kids today not being able to write, and she uses Facebook and texting as an example. My opinion, I think he’s right because we use different types of speech while doing or talking or even making a status because we feel like that is the thing to do, when it would be easier if you just use this type of speech for everything that you do. For instance, would you talk to your parents the way you talk to your friends, or would you talk to the principle like he’s your pet dog? There is a purpose for these different types of speech but at the same time, I believe that most of the reasons are irrelevant.

“Does Texting Affect Writing” is about Michaela Cullington, the author, comparing two opposing perspectives. The perspective is whether texting hinders the formal writing skills of students or not. Millennials are a population that cannot go a day without looking at their phones so, due to the “increasing use of mobile phones, concerns have been raised about its influence on their literacy skills. No matter if it is sending or receiving a text or checking social media sites, technology has taken over the lives of the young generations. The essay “Does Texting Affect Writing?” in They Say, I say exposes how the significant action of texting and using textspeak, i.e. abbreviations and symbols, may be hindering the writing skills of teenaged students. People communicate using textese to “more quickly type what they are trying to say” (Cullington, 2017, p. 361). Textese is a “register that allows omission of words and the use or textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever” (Van Dijk, 2016). When these people use textese often, it can become habitual and transition into their school assignments. Michaela Cullington constantly repeats words and uses comparisons and abnormalities for the concerns about textspeak, the responses to the concerns, methods and the discussion of findings on the topic to be analyzed.

Writing has changed in quite a few ways in the last couple of decades. Shakespeare writing is different than something ten years ago, just as something ten years ago is different than something current. The population adapts to the changes that occur within various aspects of society. But, this is because we are always creating new and unique ways to better the world we live in. Facebook and texting are two tools that changed the way we communicate, as well as, the way we write.

Has our “text,” language ruined our actual language? The author of 2b or not 2b is written by David Crystal. Throughout his article Crystal argues about the benefits of texting and how texting is not a new thing. David Crystal uses two rhetorical strategies to prove his argument, one being humor to compare two types of poems that were sent through text message, the other using analogy to compare schooling, and texting, and the last his using analogy to compare abbreviations that are used today, were used in history.

In this study, 60 native English speaking students were tasked with proofreading papers written by other students. They were compensated with 10 cents for every error they found. However, they would also receive a $1 penalty of each day they were late. They were given three texts that were 10 pages each to proofread, which had total of 100 grammatical and spelling errors in them. The proofreaders were told that they could submit their work early, but at no extra compensation. All the texts had to be proofread at the end of a 3 week period. Some participants were required to submit on text every week, while others could submit all the texts at the end of the three weeks.

However, according to McWhorter, texting is an “emergent complexity” with new structure. Unlike the writing of prior generations, texting embodies a new form of writing that ignores the structure and standardization of formal writing. McWhorter furthers this claim by using examples of common pragmatic particles in texting such as “LOL” and “slash.” According to McWhorter, the first pragmatic particle “LOL” acts as a “maker of accommodation and empathy.” To clarify, “LOL” acts as an indication of understanding among parties present and a continuation of the conversation. Likewise, the second particle “slash” acts as a means of changing topics in the conversation. With the rise of these conventions, according to McWhorter, an array of “new constructions” or a new vocabulary exists for use despite the lack of

   Text has become one of the most common ways teenagers communicate with others. This led to many people believing that students ability to write is declining because of texting. Cullington starts by noting argument of the negative impact of texting. Such as the one about students using abbreviations. In others words, some believe using abbreviations in

In the article “When Your Punctuation Says It All (!)” the author, Jessica Bennett, speaks of the increasing amount of emotion being shown through grammar and punctuation rather than through “audible tone” (Bennett 1). The author addresses teens up to people in their twenties specifically referring to people she has interviewed such as “Tessa Lyons, a 25-year-old” (Bennett 4) as well as statics like, “39 percent of college students punctuate the end of texts” (Bennett 3). She does this because they are her audience. They are the ones texting and placing this extra weight on their punctuation and would be most affected by the ideas and observations of the author. Bennett writes in order to inform them of what texting and instant messaging has transformed our language into and the new meanings grammar has been burdened with. She tells us about the time that she dated a

Texting is a fairly new form of communication that has taken the world by storm. It became popular around 2001, and originally had its limitations, such as the 160-character limit. But now that technology has advanced, texting has followed along and is now a convenient, casual, and a more immediate way of communicating. So naturally, texting has evolved also in terms of the language used within it. We see this mostly in the form of abbreviations and short hand spelled words. Some people argue that texting has ruined the English language. Studies and observations have shown that the benefits of texting and cyber speak are much more broad then expected. Textisms have been shown to increase phonology skills, brain activity, creativity and provide a relatable outlet for students in education.