The Depletion of True Writing

The Depletion of True Writing

Holly Blankenship

Radford University

The Depletion of True Writings

        Growing up in this day and age, the digital world is all around us. It’s almost to the point where it would be almost impossible for someone to operate in this generation without the digital aspect. When I’m out and about, I see a world full of characters and emoticons. At times during conversations and interactions, it is truly difficult to determine who’s genuine or if a role is being played. Times have certainly changed from when I was in the third grade in comparison to the third graders now. When I was in the third grade I was worried about if my cursive writing was written well enough and wondering about the next episode of my favorite cartoon that’s supposed to be coming on that night. While the third graders now our worried about the latest application that they can download and if their best friend had snapchatted them back on their brand-new, high-tech smartphone. People often ask me why I’m so passionate about this topic, and my answer to them is because these smart phones and social media sites are the cause of the depletion of our writing skills.  

        Don’t get me wrong, smartphones and social media sites can be a beautiful thing; it can be used as a huge platform to reach out to a mass audience as well as a quick and convenient way of communication. Though the pros and cons of smart phones and social media are evident, we need to pause and acknowledge how much of an influence it is in this upcoming generation. In order to tackle this issue head on, we will need to focus our attention on the children. The reason being is that in reality, the children are the future; so if they’re the future, what does that say about the generation afterwards? I don’t think this issue could be solved in one day by any means, but at the same time, thinking that it’s too late to make a change is also the wrong mentality. I believe finding a genuine balance in between the social media life and real life is very important for each and every one of us.

        I never want to have to see my little brother write “lol” in the middle of his sentence or “haha” in a collective group writing project, but the way things are going right now, it’s not looking too bright for younger my brother and his fellow peers. If we allow the kids now to continue to spend more time texting, tweeting, face-booking, than actually writing out full sentences with the correct rules of proper writing then we are setting them up for failure. It’s vital information the young ones are losing nowadays when it comes to punctuation, phrases, and grammar. The sad part about it is that there isn’t enough attention drawn to this and what makes it even worse is that this whole issue starts at home.

        Most parents of the young adolescents nowadays feel it’s the schools job to make sure that their children are being taught the proper ways to write. What some of them don’t understand is that naturally most of the kids are drawn to their phone than they are in class, so they already would rather be on their phone, than to be in class “learning.” So the first step I would say to do is not allow their children to take their phones with them to school. The second step would be to limit their time on the social media pages sites. The third step would be to just take the time out to spend with them to make sure they get it; to make sure that they aren’t typing like they text, or writing like they tweet.

To clear the air, by no means am I saying every parent doesn’t do their job, and that every kid doesn’t know how to properly write. Though, what I am saying is that there are kids out there who don’t know how to put away the texting mentality when constructing a paper, and there are parents out there who could be a better mentor with this occurring issue. Though the parents aren’t the only ones at fault, I think the teachers and the schools are at fault as well. As a whole, “69 % of schools across America have some sort of way of implementing social media and/or smart devices in the curriculum” (Lovejoy, 2015). To me, that statement speaks volumes, but it carries its pros and cons. I try to look at smart phones as a guide, while others may look at it as a way of life and the “answer”. I fear that our younger generations are going to grow up thinking that these smart phones are the answer, and the media is the answer, as well as any other social platform they come across. I believe it is okay to have smart devices and social medias in the schools, but to a certain extent. Things need to be looked over and modified, “we have to come to our general senses to acknowledge the fact that our writing skills are very well going downhill due to the obsessiveness of our social media and smart devices” (Tomaszewski, 2011).