CMM 250- Paper 1

Brittany Davis Intro for Paper #1
Professor Roche
CMM 250
Oct. 21, 2009

Social Networking Dumbing us Down?

The 21st century has been the era of technological advancements. Society is so connected and dependent on technology that it is a part of our lives; to many it is a daily routine like showering and getting dressed. We are a lazy society and are always looking for the easiest and most convenient ways of doing things. Some say society is losing its ability to think naturally due to technology. One aspect of technology is the internet; it is a tool that can be good or bad depending on who is using it, but can help make our lives more efficient. Not only has society evolved, so has the internet. The internet has progressed tremendously since the 80’s and 90’s; it has more uses than just electronic mailing, finding new information, and learning new things. It is a way to connect with people on a business, private, and social level. However, are social networks like: Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace dumbing society down? Is society’s communication being reduced in retrospect to literacy?

Social networks connect people to other people no matter where they are located at anytime of the day. Everything is supposed to be faster and/or more rapid; the key is to get your thoughts out in the quickest way possible without the message losing its content. So it is only fair that the way people communicate and actually interact is faster. Typing is the most popular and convenient way of communicating on these networks; however, research shows that less than half the population can type 50 words per minute. Thus, if people want to type and type fast; he or she in a way has to improvise. When it comes to typing there are no rules or guidelines. Grammar and punctuation is disregarded; phrases, words, and sentences become abbreviated. For example: “i lov bball…but i hate getn up at 6 evry morning…an skool is hard wit 18hrs…sum of my classes giv lots of work….i hope i can mak it 2 dec. “George Parker, guest columnist for psfk.com, has stated, “Logic often goes out of the window, to be replaced by rapid response. The new message is blasted out to large circles of friends or followers, who are busy cranking out more gibberish in an effort, not only to keep up with you, but to outdo you in the volume of replies from like minded churls.” In other words the connection with friends and other potential friends is more important than sounding intelligence. If a person is socially networking daily and typing in that form than eventually he or she is going to get use to it. After so much repetition it becomes natural, or a bad habit that can affect other aspect in life; and everyone knows a habit is hard to break.

Literacy is a big part of life especially for students; papers, essays, and class assignments have to be grammatically correct. When it comes to my own experiences, I know social networks are hampering my when it comes to literacy. I would probably spend more time revising typed papers, if Microsoft Word didn’t correct some errors and let me know when something is misspelled. Not only with typing, but when I am doing an in class writing assignment it takes me longer. I feel like I cannot just write; I am always making sure every word is spelled correctly, and I didn’t miss any punctuation marks. I feel like the content of my writings or answers suffer, because I am more focused on the assignment being grammatically correct. Even typing this paper, the simplest word I forget how to spell, or I spell it correctly, but because I am not use to seeing the word spell correctly it doesn’t look correct at all. I hate to say it, but I use “an” so much instead of “and” that I cannot recognize when I’m suppose to use it sometimes. In addition I hear all the time how this affects my friends. Sunday night I was at the café with the majority of my teammates, and I asked, “Are social networks dumbing us down”; a few didn’t understand so I had to break it down. I went more in depth with the actual networks, and described the way some people type when on these networks. All ten came to a consensus that in many different ways it is hurting our literacy skills than helping. They described their own problems with forgetting words. One of my teammates suggested how “Twitter can really get you.” She said Twitter only always 146 characters in a message or post, so to get your complete thought out you do whatever you can. Then the discussion went to when does a person use an apostrophe when they are trying to show possession but the subject is plural, containing an ‘s’ at the end. I bet the people overhearing our conversation thought we were just the dumbest girls ever. However, the discussion proved that it does slow down people’s natural ability to think. We are college students, some things should come to a person naturally; but instead we are back tracking.

One thing I personally didn’t think about, that another of my teammates said was pronunciation; it is associated with literacy. She explained how she talks how she types; chopping up words and saying abbreviated phrases, words, and sentences. Instead of “the” she says “da,” “going to” becomes “gonna,” “running” becomes “runnin,” or “want” becomes “wanna”; and “be right back” turns into “brb”. Now, I don’t go that far with saying abbreviated words or phrases, but I have notice that I do not pronounce words correctly. I say “da,” “dis,” “wit,” “wanna,” and “dem”; I am so use to typing in this matter that it is now affecting my speech. I believed I’ve always been a excellent speaker naturally, but the last three years I’ve notice that I have to concentrate more, and take my time instead of letting it flow; because if I don’t with my accent people would not be able to understand me. It is a terrible habit that I do subconsciously.

Social networks are great for communicating with people, connecting with friends, and networking. On the other hand it can be hurting you in intangible ways. Disregarding proper grammar and punctuation on these networks may not make a person dumb, but it can decrease your overall communication skills; whether it’s typing, writing, and/or speaking. Even though someone could say that no one is forcing people to type grammatically incorrect; if you wanted to type proper you can, so it is not the social network it’s the people. I would slightly agree, but the majority is still the networks, it’s almost like peer pressure. When a social network only allow you so many characters it’s hard to say what you really want; the networks forces you to shorten up phrases, words, and/or sentences. Social networks also have so much going on a person doesn’t have time to send long messages; not with all the new features and applications they want to take advantage. Social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace may be fulfilling, satisfying, and wonderful at the time to many, but the people of today’s society is losing its ability to think naturally, and it is reducing literacy some way, shape, or form.