Letter to the editor of ‘Twtr? It's majorly bad!’

To the editor,

In response to the article 'Twtr? It's majorly bad!', I would like to touch on a few topics you discussed in this article. Overall it seems that you have quite a negative view on technology as you claim that this 'Textspeak', an effect of the use of social media, is harming students's English.

First of all I disagree with the statement "a generation of children are leaving school without a proper grasp of spelling and grammar because of the impact of so-called textspeak.". Technology, social media to be precise, is definitely not the cause of generations with poor spelling and grammar. This is because first of all not all students are as active on the internet as others, it is unfair to blame poor spelling or grammar on the internet as the student should be able to possess this in order to successfully communicate with one another and before starting abbreviations. In order for students to use word abbreviations, also known as textspeak, they should first be able to make proper sentences before they can start shortening words and replacing letters with numbers. The article claimed that there is a"danger of growing up with limited vocabularies because they (children) spend so much of their free time on sites such as Twitter and Facebook instead of reading". I disagree with this statement because surfing on these sites does not necessarily limit the child's vocabulary. As apposed to reading a book, many internet sites provide information as well which could help expand the child's vocabulary.

The statement "complaints from teachers that pupils increasingly use abbreviations and colloquialisms in school work and tests." is not an indicator that it is just the internet causing students to start using abbreviations and colloquialisms in school. This is because it is the pupil's decision to do so, despite the frequent use of this textspeak on the internet, in the end it is the student's choice of selecting the right words for school work. The student is responsible for distinguishing the difference between the casual English use such as textspeak and the formal used in formal situations, the student therefore is responsible for choosing the correct English based on the situation they are in. The article states that in "An American study, by Pennsylvania State University, detected a decline in scores in grammar tests if text messages contained lots of shortened words.". Again, it is the pupil's responsibility to detect the right form of English based on the situation they are in, whether or not to use abbreviations or not. It is also the pupil's choice to text using proper grammar instead of ignoring these rules out of convenience. 

I appreciate this article as it shows a different perspective on the use of internet and technology, however the claims which are made in this article are very one-sided, meaning that other factors such as personal decision and language selection are completely left out and instead everything is being blamed on the internet. The internet does have some negative effects, however it also has many positive effects on the English language today and therefore we should embrace it instead of criticizing it!