Question: Are texting and social media sites harming our children’s literacy skills?
I love my students, and I love teaching. However, my job has become significantly more challenging than it was when I began my career 28 years ago. Texting and social networking sites have hurt students’ literacy skills.
Students returned to school recently. Other than texting and using social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, the majority of students have done little to no reading or writing since June when the last school year ended.
On Oct. 11-13, students will take the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test that will be used to evaluate their teachers and school district.
Students will read numerous selections, answer objective questions, and write an essay.
They will be asked to choose key ideas to support a position on a question, to use examples and details to support their position, and to show mastery of language and writing conventions. Those are skills we should expect of students and of literate adults.
However, when students text or use social networking sites, they aren’t practicing the language and writing conventions expected of literate adults and tested on the MEAP. Instead, they are developing habits that will not contribute to academic or career success.
Texting and social networking sites don’t require careful reading or editing. Those are skills expected of literate individuals.
They also don’t require writing in complete sentences. Twitter, for example, only allows 140 characters. Consequently, many students write in fragments and run-ons.
This also has an effect on word choice. Typically, students use slang and abbreviations. Consequently, many students start using slang in formal writing because it’s part of their everyday writing and speech.
There also is a negative effect on punctuation, especially when texting. It ignores language and writing conventions. Many students have no idea when to use capital letters. They don’t capitalize ‘I.’ They don’t capitalize proper names. You’re/your, there/their/they’re, and its/it’s become interchangeable. Punctuation is haphazard.
Also, texting and social networking sites don’t require practicing handwriting; therefore, many students can’t write legibly. Every year, I am amazed by how few of my eighth-graders are able to read or write cursive. They struggle with their own signature.
Today, students might be brighter than students 28 years ago — and they should be. We know more about teaching and learning today, and information is more readily accessible.
Aldous Huxley, a famous English writer, once wrote, “Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”
Texting and social networking might have advanced “small talk” communication, but they don’t encourage deeper, more meaningful communication — the type of literacy necessary for academic success or a professional career.
Sue Mierzwa is an English teacher at Western Middle School in Parma. She has taught English, reading, psychology and sociology during her 28-year teaching career.