William Copley

Professor McGriff
ENC1101
3/28/2016
Blame Media for Lack of Communication and Grammar!

Everyone seems to be focusing on is whether or not kids today are faced with
communication disadvantages due to the ever increasing media usage. These forums come in all
different formats, such as text messaging, social media, and blogs. With people using these
outlets gone are the days of face to face communication, and misuse of grammar. Today
everyone including kids are seen with phones in hand with the soft blue light illuminating their
faces, so it is no wonder there is such a concern. Everyone is so quick to place the blame on the
technological advances of todays society, but at what point do we hold people accountable for
their actions and stop blaming everything else for the way people learn, interact, and control
themselves? Everything we do has consequences and this should be no exception. Media the
number one accused cause of humans not being able to communicate effectively, losing their
attention span, and blamed for people lacking grammar and writing abilities.
In the essay Mind over Mass Media, p.893, Steven Pinker writes about how technology
has advanced and has been criticized by many researches and phycologists. I agree with Pinker
that media and the way people communicate is because people dont set boundaries or limits and
therefore become addicted to media. One way to set boundaries is to set time constraints on the
time spent texting, or being on social media. When people are constantly using abbreviations
such as LOL for laugh out loud, or BRB for be right back people start to become lazy and begin

to use texting jargon when wiring papers. This in turn has forced schools, including colleges to
direct students that if they use abbreviations, write as if they were texting, or make grammatical
errors they will get a zero on their assignments. This is one way people are being held
accountable for their actions when it comes to the usage of media and individuals needs to
writing papers for school.
Communication face to face, there are many media outlets that continue to allow people
to have face to face interactions. For example Skype, and facetime allow users to talk to one
another via video chat. These are all technological advances that we are seeing in todays society.
In the essay from TSIS Is Digital Communication Good, Bad, or both? p.169 the author points
out that online communication is a dialect between a group of people in a way to take in what
someone is saying, think about what is being said, and then offer a response as needed. I too
agree that people use many forms of technology to talk to people all over the world in just this
manner. Imagine not being able to talk to someone online overseas though online chat, or skype
for example. Both of these outlets provide a positive transition to the world around us and the
way we use it to communicate with one another. If we couldnt talk to one another no matter
where we are in the world this will limit our ability to get information from one place to another
in a timely manner. Imagine 15 years ago how slow news traveled from one place to another. By
the time we got the newspaper or watched the news on television the events had already
happened. Today we are able to see real time events take place because of the use of cell phones,
and social media.
Is texting damaging our language skills? This is the question posed in an article on
psychology today. I agree and disagree with this article and here is why. Yes texting can damage
our ability to speak clearly or even write a paper that makes sense. With the vast amount of

information being put out by many different sources it is hard for a writer, researcher or student
to process all this information being taken in at one time. This in turn has had a negative impact
on how people write. Many times we begin to write papers and they make no sense because we
are on one thought process and then quickly without thinking switch to another topic to prove
whatever point we are trying to make. Also we have gotten into a lazy habit of using text lingo
when writing and those that are reading our work have a hard time trying to figure out what the
author is trying to say. Then there are the grammatical errors such as spelling, word placement,
the use of punctuation, many people dont use any of these in texts, or social media posts so why
would they when they write papers. However, if individuals take the responsibility to write texts
as if they were actually writing papers this would improve ones ability to write. For example I
have a child who has struggled his entire school life spelling, writing, reading comprehension,
and formatting sentence structures. Texting has afforded him the opportunity to spell correctly by
showing him options of words in which he is trying to spell, or he will simply how to spell a
word. He is able to communicate with many of his friends in a matter of minutes. His writing in
school has improved because of his ability to text. Granted he sometimes uses abbreviations to
talk but more often than not he is spelling each word out and formulating sentences he would not
have been able to do before. It is just a matter of how one uses this advanced technology we have
all around us.
My conclusion is this, no matter what forum you choose to use to communicate there are
many different types out there. You have to be in charge of how you use it, how it will affect you,
and be ready to take the consequences if you are not able to speak and write correctly. We have
to stop blaming our deficiencies on this and that and take personal accountability for how we
think, and learn. Otherwise we are disabling ourselves to a world with such advancements

Works Cited:
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic
Writing. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print. 167-71. "Chapter 13 Is Digital
Communication Good, Bad, or Both?" 167-71. Print
Pinker, Steve. Mind over Mass Media. Everyones an Author. By Lunsford, Andrea; Ede, Lisa;
Moss, Beverly J; Papper, Carole Clark; Walters, Keith W.W. Norton Co. Inc.: n.p., 2013
893-95. Print.
Williams, Ray. "Wired for Success." Psychology Today. FOCROFLOL, 28 July 2012. Web. 30
Mar. 2016.