THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA LANGUAGE IN WRITING SKILLS OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

1.1 Introduction

Social Media is the future of communication, a countless array of internet-based tools and platforms that increase and enhance the sharing of information. Writing is the language skill that should be constantly improved from time to time. It means that this skill requires clear thinking about what to write. Students should be taught how to express their ideas though written from language without regular practice. Writing can be bored and outraged to students who learn English as the target language, because they did not enjoy or they have not ideas which developed when they write. Principally, the main function of writing is as an indirect device of communication. Social media as a group of Internet-based applications interactive platforms that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Perez, 2013).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

The use of social media among students has reached high levels and has affected their study time, poor grammar and wrong spellings when socializing on social media as well as diverting their attention from their studies (Ndaku, 2013). Students spend much of their study time on social networks than in their academic undertakings and it has affected their Grade Point Average (GPA). Reports find that youths spend nearly ten (10) hours per day using some form of technology with socially networked media playing a large role in their daily lives (Rideout, Foehr & Robert 2010).

English has now acquired the title of the world’s leading global language (Crystal 2003) because it is used for business, science, and politics. When we use the term English, readers may assume that we are referring to a standard of usage that everyone agrees upon. Readers may think that we must mean British Standard English or American Standard English because the English that exists in such places as Africa, Asia, the West Indies, the Philippines and Singapore is not real or standard English. Readers may also think that teachers of English as a second language (ESL) must be teaching British or American Standard English because that is what their learners want to learn.

Most of the members to these social networking sites are young people who are still in school. Al-Rahma and Othman (2013) inform that there is no doubt that social media has gained wider acceptability and usability and is also becoming the most important communication tools among students. A large percentage of teenagers in Nigeria spend their time online either using smart phones or their computers and other handheld gadgets such as ipads and tablets browsing these social media. Students at all levels of education seize every opportunity they get to access social media to check on status on Facebook and what is trending on Twitter. Teenagers have learnt to multitask as they switch from one social network to another.

Hetz et al. (2015) posits that social media and texting can damage children’s ability to relate with each other and new media increases access for lots of children but it doesn’t give them the experience of face-to-face contact. This new form of media makes the transfer of text, photos, audio, video, and information in general increasingly fluid among internet users. Social media has relevance not only for regular internet users, but for business as well. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Whatsapp have created online communities where people can share as much or as little personal information as they desire with other members.

English language and made misspelling the norm. The Internet and social media platforms foster the belief that there is no need to correct typographical errors or conform to rules and hence, users are at liberty to abandon spelling rules, thereby encouraging children and students especially, to spell words incorrectly (Bovill, 2010).

Writing is foundational to success in academics, in the work place and in the global economy. In an increasingly demanding world of literacy, the importance of ensuring students’ proficiency in writing can never be overemphasized. The ability to write well, hitherto a luxury is now a dire necessity (Gallagher, 2006).

To Yiljep (2018), writing skill is the fourth and last of all the language skills. It is generally termed as the most difficult and complicated skills to master. The first two skills tend to come naturally especially in L1 situation. It is an expressive skill. It is a viable medium of communication to readers whatever the writer wants to convey. He further defines writing as an assemblage of sentences in such a way as to produce a meaningful account of an object or an event. Unlike speaking which is learned informally, naturally and unconsciously from the beginning, writing requires conscious and formal effort to learn. Due to the technicality of writing, it is pertinent to note that any error in spelling, syntactic structure, diction and punctuation, may distort the meaning of the message entirely.

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Influence of Social Media Language in Writing Skills of Senior Secondary School Students.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that the rate at which students perform poorly in writing has become a source of concern to the teachers and educational stakeholders. Over the years, researchers have sort for causes of poor writing among students in secondary schools. Most researchers have blamed parents, government, teachers, among other factors as being threats to the performance of students in writing. However, little attention has been given to students as being the architects of their own failure.

In a developing society like Nigeria, people, especially youths are eager to try out new innovations that find their ways into the country. The heavy use of the social media has become a nuisance to our youths, especially the young students in secondary schools, whose minds are still feeble and yearning for directions. Often times, students find themselves spending more time on social media than on their books. This has led to the poor concentration and subsequently the weak performance of these students.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to examine the Influence of Social Media Language in Writing Skills of Senior Secondary School Students using Akpugo Community Secondary School in Enugu State as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To identify the new trends in writing on social media platforms in the language of Akpugo Community Secondary School;
2. To substantially confirm the effect of social media on writing skills of students;
3. To examine the effects of the new trends of writing on students’ writing and their academic performance;
4. To find out the aspects of writing skills affected by social media; and
5. To proffer the solutions to the problems posed by social media in secondary Schools students’ writing in the area under study.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Do social media have effect on writing skills of students?
• What are the aspects of writing affected by social media?
• What are the effects of the new trends of writing on students’ writing and their academic performance?
• What are solutions to the problems posed by social media in secondary Schools students’ writing in the area under study?
• What are the new trends in writing on social media platforms in the language of Akpugo Community Secondary School?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There are no significant effects of the new trends of writing on students’ writing and their academic performance
• H1: There are significant effects of the new trends of writing on students’ writing and their academic performance

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There are no new trends in writing on social media platforms in the language of Akpugo Community Secondary School
• H1: There are new trends in writing on social media platforms in the language of Akpugo Community Secondary School

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1.7 Significance of Study

The study will be of benefit to the teachers in such a way that they will come to know that excessive use of social media has negative consequences on the students performance in writing, therefore, they will take up measures to curtail or control students' use of it at the detriment of their academics.

Government is one of the major stakeholders in education. As such, the government will get to know the negative aspect of social media on the writing performance of who are in secondary schools. Therefore, they will inculcate in the curriculum important aspects that will need the students to go on research using the internet which will have a positive contribution on their academic. This will stop them from spending more time on social media doing what will not benefit them academically.

To the students, they will learn to concentrate in the classrooms when lessons are going on, instead of spending all their time on the social media making friends and chatting idly, they will use it for academics purposes.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Influence of Social Media Language in Writing Skills of Senior Secondary School Students using Akpugo Community Secondary School in Enugu State as a case study.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

English as a Second Language: The English language learned by students to whom the language is a second language in their country.

Improvement: The process of making the learning of essay writing skills better.

Learning: A process of gaining knowledge or skills on English lan- guage essay writing.

Performance: Refers to the ability or level of competence of a student in essay writing, measured by means of an achievement test.