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Is social media a good thing for the new generation or is it a destroyer?
Yes social media is powerful, wonderful and all that but, don’t you think social media is killing us? I mean it is a world of short cuts, where meeting is no longer important, we just say we will communicate online or via Facebook, twitter and the rest. We also find that in social media words are written using shortcuts, for example we make use of words such as lyk, lol, evn the list is endless.
My point here is that as wonderful as social media is portrayed to be, don’t you think there is some where it is essentially destroying us. Most students in Universities or learners in high schools find it hard to spell because of the world of social media that we live in, where words are written with the use of shortcuts and the avoidance if writing the whole word.( read more)
Think about this, sometimes one struggles to write a word because we are so used to writing words using short cuts, do you think it is a good thing or is the world going to change and we no longer have to write in full text?. The answer to that is obviously not, the world will never change and we only write words using shortcuts.
So let’s think critically about this, imagine you are public relations practitioner for a certain school in Limpopo and you had metric learners fail decimally on their English subject because they could not spell and spelled a number of their words using shortcuts because they are so used to it that it comes as second nature to them. May be social media is not as wonderful and we think it is.(read more)
It is a destroyer, it is destroying our lives because we are exposed to explicit websites and we become addicted to porn sites and so on.
ReplyDeleteIf we know that it destroys us Hlulani then why do we still engage so much it, I mean it’s less books time and more social networks.
DeleteThat is very true Musa and I am talking from experience. Once you are in you are in, it’s hard to get out, it’s as if one is addicted to smoking which I hear it hard to quit for example.
DeleteIt has its own goods and bads. In does motivate students to learn English quickly because they practice the language every day while they online, which is a good think. Even though they use chat lingo, but the right spelling is suggested to them. It takes an individual to take initiative and practice the corrrect spelling whiles chatting.
ReplyDeleteI hear all you are saying but not every phone has spelling suggesting, like for example Nokia, which such phones what the then?
DeleteIt has also affected us that we always busy on our phones wherever we should be studying or even be concerntrating in class. That we end up procrastinating on valuable things that we should be doing
ReplyDeleteTrue hey, but why do we let social media control us so much, I mean chatting in class is not good thing because last I checked school is important and we are told it is the key to success, which means it should take priority but NO social networks does.
DeleteThat’s a great question hey and the answer I would have for that is I DON'T KNOW and which I am sure everyone will have the same answer as I have.
Deletegood question hey and talking from experience I would say that is impossible, I for one never checks for errors in spelling and I once made an error sending a professional email , that’s how bad this is hey.
ReplyDeletewhat an interesting way of pointing out facts about the works of social media, but with words such as "social world is said to be controlled by Devil Worshipers" I do not agree with that, the only way I can believe or agree with that is if the is proof of facts to verify it.
ReplyDeleteThat is religious talk sir and yes according to religion we could say that. But I am looking for facts, something that is verifiable.
ReplyDeleteI think social has a good influence the problem is how one uses social media.
ReplyDeleteJackie Yes you are right, you might know how to use it in a correct way yes, but what about a high school student from Limpopo for instance, will he or she know how to use it in a good way that it doesn’t destroy his or her writing skills?
DeleteI get your argument and yes it is what you believe, but I find it hard to believe something that does not have cold hard facts.
ReplyDeleteI do not have anything in mind that I know and I am not saying you are wrong; all I am saying is to you have facts to back up your statement?
ReplyDeleteSocial media is destroying people and this will be a huge problem in future as young generation take it serious than practicing to write proper and complete words.
ReplyDeleteTrue hey, this makes one wonder as to what kind of generation will be, maybe the generation of the people who cannot spell. This is funny imagining when the next generation study history and they study about us the generation of there cannot spell.
Deletei think as the social media users we have to be aware and pay attention to our writing looking at whom we are directing our message to for e.g if you are writing directed proffetionally then you will have to use the correct spelling in your grammar but then if its on social network were by you are chatting to your friends then thats where you can start using social media spelling.and i dnt see any confusion in that
ReplyDeleteI hear what you are saying but let’s face it 90 per cent of the things we write via social media we write to our friends and sometimes without noticing it when writing directed professionally we use social media terms.
DeletePeople, students, learners have all lost the plot of the use of social media and it is just in the way one uses it. The other problem we facing is that we are just way too lazy to read books and we rely mostly on social media because of it is short and gets straight to the point, we no longer get to use our imaginations.
ReplyDeleteTrue hey and it goes back to what I said to Vongani I wonder what generation will be in the history books. The generation of the can not spell. This is funny and painful at the same time.
DeleteI would say that social media is killing us because of these short cuts words and it will reach an extent where we cannot even construct good sentences because we will not be able to spell.
ReplyDeleteI second you on that Nyiko I'm finding it difficult to write professional especially academically because I'm used in writing shortcuts. We are being destroyed here.
ReplyDeleteThe question here is what to do hey, how are we going to change this or are we going to allow it to destroy us while we know we are being destroyed?
DeleteI have to say that I am one of the people who think that social media is slowly but surely eating away our writing skills. I have, in the past, come across matric students in Pretoria who were so used to shortening words to an extent that they would end up repeating the same mistake when writing academic essays. But I do not think that social media is the one to blame, I actually think that it is our lasiness and 'rush-mode' that causes us to end up seeking and using the shortest and fastest way to convey a conversation. The power to write in full sentence is in our hands, reason being that social media platforms do not prohibit anyone from writing in full sentences.
ReplyDeleteYou know we have acknowledge these things and we a experiencing them ourselves some of us but the question is what can we do?
DeleteTrue that,on the other side of the coin what's life without social media on this day and age for you and for an organisation?. I also agree with Edwin.
ReplyDeleteWhat was life back then without social media Themba? Didn’t we live and didn’t organisations survive?
Deletei dont think all this social networking sites have negetive outcome/impact the users are the problem because they turn to ubuse it and portray personal details. If it is used wisely with respect and not forgetting traditional medias will be back on track.
ReplyDeleteI also do not think all social media websites have a bad influence like LinkedIn for example it’s professional site but people are less interested in in, the sites that have bad influences are the one people engage more on.
Deletebecause social media has huge impact in our lives and we find it hard to spell and all, maybe its about time they also put this words like lol, lyk, tms in the dictionary and make things easy for everyone, nyiko you have to agree with me on this one.
ReplyDeleteVery funny khanyisa, you know that won’t be a solution and you also know very well that will never happen.
DeleteIt is a sad reality that social media language has taken over the word. School kids are now transfeering it into the academic world and you might find that they were on ther right track but because of the language that they used, failure occurs
ReplyDeleteIt very sad indeed and what is more worse is that nothing is done about it the way I see it.
DeleteSocial media is not good for the young generations, like you said they get used to shortening words and end up being illiterate.
ReplyDeleteExactly but we still consume it knowing it is making us to become illiterate.
Deletesocial media has just ruined our lives, we don't even have time for one another, you find students at school not even concentrating due to social networks, even in churches and restaurants, you will find a person with a phone on his/her hand. I wish life can just be normal.
ReplyDeleteI agree hey and this is a sad case you know, I mean even at church I for one sometimes play with my phone which is not good when I look at the reason why I went to church as a christen.
DeleteDefinitely a destroyer, no doubt about that. It's really sad because I think we're beyond repair - unless we leave social media sites (and that is highly unlikely). So this social media was a great innovation back in the days, now it's a dreadful force 'coz all sorts of bad things happen around these social media sites. Pedophiles now find it quite easy to lure children into bad habits.
ReplyDeleteYou are right you know people use social media for bad things and still we still consume it. This brings a question in one’s mind, which is what is with this social media world, and why is it hard for us to live without and why does it seem like it is controlling us?
Deletesocial media must have age restrictions because children are getting exposed to all the brain damaging issues that always trend in the social feeds
ReplyDeletethat’s a great thought you came up with even I didn’t think of that hey and yes maybe the age restrictions can be made and maybe it will try to protect learners that are still in high school to not be exposed to these things.
DeleteI Am Just Happy That Everyone Can Read This Days…. (Big Ups To That!).... We need to acknowledge and encourage literacy in our country. According to me, Social Networks are enforcing literacy; there is no way you can be on facebook if you cannot read. In doing so, young ones are forced to learn to Read and Write before being part of social networks. Generally most people fail to express themselves fully in written form, social networks are too demanding for average minds. i know you have seen those “statuses of the year” on facebook where by people are being mocked for their spelling errors or poor sentence constructions (so called skhothanes are famous for this one). The problem is that people with low mental capacities prefer to exchange texts amongst themselves; there is no improvement in this engagement. this people are not challenged mentally, they need to interact with other people that are out of their stupidity circles. why type words in “shortcuts” when you are a student? you are fully aware that you have to write an academic essay at the end of the day. When you fail you claim “Social Media is killing us”; people need to be responsible for their education. Psychology states that you cannot be influenced without you taking part in that process, you can never do what you do not want to do. PEOPLE ARE JUST LAZY TO TYPE! i repeat.. PEOPLE ARE LAZY! i do not see any hardship picking up a dictionary. i am quoting Gnet.M.M for this one, “It takes an individual to take initiative and practice the corrrect spelling while chatting”. I have been typing words in full since Mxit days and i was only using a samsung phone with no spelling suggestions, i went through a dictionary to learn words and how to spell them. I did all of that for myself, what is stopping you from doing the same?
ReplyDeleteIt’s a good thing what you are doing, which trying to make sure that your spelling capacity as a person grows hey so big up to you; you inspire me to do the same as you hey and I hope the people that read my blog will hopefully take notes from you as well.
DeleteKeep up the good work Nyiko!!!!
DeleteUntil I see the proof or facts you say you have myself then I am sorry I cannot just take your word for it.
ReplyDelete