More handpicked essays just for you.
The effects of text messaging and instant messaging on literacy
Multimedia content in education
The role of language
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In today’s society there are many technological advances that have contributed to advanced communication. While these are great things to have and can help people communicate across the globe, they have become a hindrance to critical thinking. With the advancement of technology throughout the world people are able to think less while still “functioning” as a human being. Literacy is thrown to the wayside while texting “lingo” runs rampant. Why read a book when you can watch the movie? Students are becoming less interested in language, reading, and writing and more involved with surfing the web for answers. This shift in the value of literacy opens the world up to many dangers that if not confronted and demolished could lead to a society unable …show more content…
“Constantly ‘the average American’ is surrounded by premeditated language, in newspapers and magazines, on signs and billboards, on TV and radio” (Berry). Words are shortened in texts to “save time” and tweets are limited to a 140 characters. Other social media, like Snapchat, not only limits the amount of characters but also encourages the use of images instead of words. Images have replaced conversation; moreover, all of these limitations will cause people to limit their thoughts. Communication is diminishing in a world slowly throwing away the importance of words. Berry notices this when he says, “We must know a better language. We must speak, and teach our children to speak, a language precise and articulate and lively enough to tell the truth about the world as we know it” (Berry). The world needs to start a change now and cast off the condensing of language so that they may teach their children to love words. When someone loves language it helps them cultivate an appreciation for literacy. With this love, people can start to bring back the language and raise up a nation of critical
In the article “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy,” writer Clive Thompson argues that the widespread use of technology and social media does not make kids illiterate and unable to form coherent sentences, but instead, keeps them actively writing and learning. Thompson’s article is based off of a study done by Andrea Lunsford, a writing professor at Stanford University. Thompson agrees with Lunsford that the use of social media and the Internet allow students to be creative and get better at writing. In his article, Thompson quotes John Sutherland, an English professor at University College of London, to inform the audience of the opposite side of the argument. He states, “Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have
1. The main point Kirk Johnson, writer of “Today’s Kids Are, Like, Killing the English Language” published by the New York Times, illustrates is a shift in the way society nowadays communicates and expresses themselves with the emergence of technology and other forms of media in this new era compared to the precedent and placid century.
The communication system has been reduced to the use of “emoji’s” which is simply defined as a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion and various forms of broken language are now used to communicate. This is an epidemic that has destroyed language conventions and turned them into language formulas. Verbal communication is hindered based on the use of these electronic communications which has translates itself into individuals informal contacts of which Frye says “[the]vast majority of things we here today are prejudice and cliches, simply verbal formulas that have no thought behind them but are put up as pretence to thinking”( Frye, 8). People passively accept these unfit word conventions and formulas of communication, which inadvertently influence and hinder verbal communication; Thus leading to the inability to articulate resulting in the impoverishment of the means of verbal communication. Indeed, while the most important aspect of the article containing Northrop Frye is his assertion that the inability to articulate thoughts and ideas results in the impoverishment of the means of verbal communication.
In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, he asserts that the evolution of information and communication technology (ICTs) is having a detrimental impact on our brains despite the many benefits and advances we have made with it. His main focus is on the internet which he commonly refers to as the “universal medium” (92). Carr presents a very detailed but biased argument in which he views the internet and other technologies as the adversary of critical thinking and progress. To Carr, we are sacrificing our ability to think logically because we are choosing the simpler way to gain knowledge.
However, Carr and Turkle both agree that technology has done good, but it has come at the cost of our ability to think critically. In the two articles, both authors heavily emphasize the negative effects of computer technology on how it is diminishing human cognition and the ability to process information.
Rhetorical Questions - In the fifth paragraph of this essay MacNeil ask rhetorical questions like "Is our exposure to social media wiping out regional differences and causing us all to speak the same? Is the language really in serious decline?" Including these questions in the paper helps convey consideration regarding the reason for the
In today’s society many technological advances have contributed to advanced communication. While these are advantageous and can improve communication across the globe, they have become a hindrance to critical thinking. With the advancement of technology throughout the world human beings are able to think less while still “functioning.” Literacy is thrown to the wayside and texting “lingo” runs rampant. Why read a book when you can watch the movie? Students are becoming less interested in language, reading, and writing and more involved with surfing the web for answers. This shift in the value of literacy opens the world up to many dangers that if not confronted and demolished could lead to a society unable to think for themselves.
Text messaging has become a norm in our generation, as technology rapidly advances and gives way to more efficient forms of communication in a fast-paced world; and many are skeptical about the influence this new form of interaction is having on our society, especially with our younger generation. David Crystal, a professor at the University of Wales, writes “2b or Not 2b?” in support of text messaging. He insists, despite those who underestimate or negate the beneficial influence text messaging has on language proficiency, that “there is increasing evidence that [texting] helps rather than hinders literacy” and that the fairly recent form of communication has actually been around for a while and “is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adopt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. In contrast, Jeffery Kluger argues in “We Never Talk Anymore: The Problem with Text Messaging” that text messaging is rapidly becoming a substitute for more genuine forms of communication and is resulting in difficulty among young peoples of our generation to hold a face-to-face conversation, engage in significant nonverbal expression, and ultimately build effective relationships with family, friends and co-workers. Both writers’ present valid arguments, however, my personal experience with text messaging has led me to agree more with Crystal’s view on the matter. Text messaging is indeed having a positive effect on society by making frequent texters primarily aware of the need to be understood, as well as offering betterment of spelling and writing through practice, and reinventing and expanding on a bygone dimension of our language through the use of rebuses and abbreviations.
“Everyone Speaks Text Message" appeared in an American daily newspaper, The New York Times, on December 9, 2011. Author, Tina Rosenberg, a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute, in “Everyone Speaks Text Message” implores her readers to contemplate preserving their native language and presents digital technology as the ultimate solution. Rosenberg targets linguistic minorities and the readers of The New York Times as her audience. The author’s main purpose is to inform the readers that numerous indigenous languages such as N’Ko are fading away, and efforts towards saving them must be initiated. She examines the problems faced by N’Ko, and then she concludes the essay by discussing efforts put forth by the native people to save N’Ko. Rosenberg uses anecdote, imagery, and statistics in her article to let the audience know that many native writing scripts such as N’Ko are on the verge of extinction, and there are ways to save them.
“Our generation doesn't ring the doorbell. They text or call to say they're outside,” this line is from one of the well-known social networks, Tweeter, which shows how the way of communication has change in this modern life. According to 2013 statistics by Business Insider, in United States alone, smartphone owners aged 18 to 24 send 2,022 texts per month on average — 67 texts on a daily basis — and receive another 1,831 texts (Cocotas). Nowadays, technology such as text messaging has practically replaced traditional face to face communication among the society primarily in young generations because texting allows messages to be sent fast and effortless. In order to quickly type what they are trying to say in text messaging, people are frequently using textspeak; the language created by using abbreviation rather than complete words. Based on this phenomenon, David Crystal, an honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales has published an article entitled ‘2b or not 2b?’ in the Guardian on July 5, 2008 comes out with the research and studies that state texting can actually improve the literacy of children and create creativity of writing. However, by observing more critically, texting do decrease a person’s ability to switch between textspeak and the normal rules of grammar and adversely affect formal writing and conversational skills.
Texting is killing language,” Ted starts off the video by saying that “The idea is that texting spells the decline and fall of any kind of serious literacy, or at least writing ability, among young people in the United States and now the whole world today (Ted, 2013). Throughout the film discussion, what stuck out to me the most was how drastic language has changed via technology.
Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has permeated and become an integral part of our everyday lives. In fact, a life without technology seems almost impossible to imagine. Almost everyone, around the globe, has access to technology in one form or another. Consequently this type of technology has become ingrained into our culture. Its roots are so deep that it is now peculiar to see someone without a smartphone than with one. Consequently, smartphones and the Internet have radically changed the manner in which we communicate and how we communicate with one another. Our speech has metamorphosed so much from that of our grandparents that it almost seems like a foreign language due to the incorporation of slang and “text talk.” With the sudden surge of email, blogs, and instant messaging that occurred within the last couple of decades, the impact that technology has on our linguistics has become more pronounced. Technology has helped to bridge the gap between people by allowing us to communicate as easily as we breathe. On this note, one would think that the dawn of the Era of Technology would give birth to a renaissance of the English language but, instead, the converse is taking place. With such widespread prevalence of technology such as smartphones and computers, the degradation of the English language is a problem now more than ever.
In the last twenty-five years, advancements in technology combined with the unbridled growth of social media, has dramatically altered not only the methods used to communicate but the linguistics as well. The meteoric rise in the use of new media sources have resulted in the creation of a type of shorthand English. With today’s social media, abbreviations such as LOL, OMG, BRB, and ROFL are easily recognizable by its followers yet remain a mystery to those not connected. The preference of the younger generation for social media such as texting, Twitter, and Facebook over face–to-face communication has not only had an effect on communication skills, but has also led to a further disconnect with the adult population. Twenty years ago, when a family went out to dinner it was considered family time; an opportunity for all the family members to get caught up with what was going on in each other’s life. Today, watching that same family outing, one is much more likely to see each of them sitting at the same table, looking down at a smart phone texting, and very little if any co...
Firstly, it is very common for people to believe that Social Media has had a negative impact on the use of language by teenagers . This is because of a variety of reasons. The first being that communicating online is almost like a 'mid-ground between spoken language and written language for communication' [1] The term used for this is 'written-speak' or 'spoken-writing' [2] If young people are continuously using this form of communication, it may have severe ramifications on young people’s communication and literacy skills, as it can lead to the learning of...
With 80% of Americans using internet, and that 80% spending an average of 17 hours a week online (each), according to the 2009 Digital Future Report, we are online more than ever before. People can't go a few hours let alone a whole day without checking their emails, social media, text messages and other networking tools. The average teen today deals with more than 3,700 texts in just a month. The use of technology to communicate is making face to face conversations a thing of the past. We have now become a society that is almost completely dependent on our technology to communicate. While technology can be helpful by making communication faster and easier, but when it becomes our main form of conversation it becomes harmful to our communication and social skills. Technological communication interferes with our ability to convey our ideas clearly. Technology can harm our communication skills by making us become unfamiliar with regular everyday human interactions, which can make it difficult for people to speak publicly. Technology can also harm our ability to deal with conflict. These days it is easier to h...