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The influence of digital tools on writing skills

Adilya Buranbayeva (ID: 20112528)

GEN 1121 Academic Reading and Writing 2

Instructor: Juldyz Smagulova

Fall 2013, Almaty

The influence of digital tools on writing skills

As we all know, 21st century is the century of technology and all of us are affected by it. Every day we are communicating with each other but we do not use formal language all the time. Each group of people, who are close friends or something like that, has its own slang which might be not understandable for other people. Today almost everyone has his own cell phone or other electronic device. It is hard to meet the person who doesn't have even the simplest mobile phone. The youngsters have the “super-cool” gadgets which can replace even computers. So, for the majority of people all their life is spinning around their digital tools. Nowadays people prefer texting short messages and chatting in the social network rather than writing letters and meeting for face-to-face communications. Even if they meet, all that they do is chatting with someone or posting some news in their blogs. Also, the main source of literacy is forgotten, only small part of youngsters love reading books, and it caused the problem of poor writing skills among youth and teenagers. People forgot how to write long, well structured and coherent figures of speech.

Outline:

Literature review

1. Introduction

2. Changing writing habits

a) Attention problems

3. Differences in writing habits by the age and gender

4. Factors and causes of changing writing habits

5. Maximizing the positive impact of technology in education

a) Influence of digital tools on people's writing

b) The impact of information technology on the writing

c) Influence of technology on the way we write

Literature review

In this section I will describe existing studies on influences of technologies for the written language on pupils and students. Today cell phones, laptop computers, Wi-Fi availability, mp3 players and tabs of every brand, and many other techniques have a huge impact on every aspect of life, and the language is no exception. Electronic devices are becoming increasingly popular means of communication, but there is concern that this trend has a negative impact on the students' writing skills. In this study, the ratio of new technologies to the letter and its implications considered articles and current research on the impact of electronic communications on literacy and language development.

So, in this work I want to identify reasons and consequences of influence of technology on writing. In the articles found, there are reasons why students and teenagers have a negative impact on writing, such as using the Internet, decreasing of writing trainings outside of schools or university. There are some statistics about how many people texting with each other, also there are gender and age comparisons, where authors describe how writing habits depends on age and sex. For example, regular SMS communication and the use of short abbreviations affects to the written language. Students of Singaporean Business School conducted a survey of 800 young people. It showed that students use abbreviations and other abbreviations used in SMS, forums and chats, even in his writing: in the letters, notes, etc. About 33 % of respondents send 300 to 600 SMS per month, and more than half of the respondents gained access to the cellular age from 15 to 19 years. Also, there are articles which give suggestions how to improve writing habits. In my literature review I will review some important points:

· Changing writing habits;

· Differences in writing habits by the age and gender;

· Factors and causes of changing writing habits;

· Maximizing the positive impact of technology in education;

Changing writing habits

The influence of computer and other information technologies for the speaking and writing of pupils and students is under careful attention by the linguists in the XXI century. The wide spread of modern information technology has had a great impact on the life of modern society, in particular the culture of communication between students and students via short messages through the social networks, digital tools or with software for instant messaging. Educators worried use of students in both orally and in writing, speaking words that are contained various types of errors. Such as language is constantly changing, due to the development of communication technology its changes recently accelerated and led to some interesting changes in the use of written language, and even doubts about the negative or positive impact of this technology on the tongue. Some language researchers claim that language is deteriorating due to the increasing use of electronic communications (Godwin, 2010). The absence of face-to-face interaction that sometimes characterizes the more widespread use of this technology means that many contextual and non-verbal language signals can be lost, and it is doubtful that the language of the maximum appropriateness, relevance and level of formality is still stuck in an electronic communication. Some studies, however, reveals some of the positive aspects these technologies on language skills. For many teenagers, the ability to easily modify, edit and revise their texts on the fly is one of the most striking advantages of writing on the computer.

Almost six out of ten teens (57%) edit and revise more when write from the computer as compared with when they write by hand .Teen bloggers are also among the strongest supporters of a teenager the importance of writing. 65 % of teens believe that bloggers letter "core" for later successful in life compared to 53% for non- bloggers and 56 % of adolescents in the general. (Omar and Miah, 2012)

According to Toshomanova (2011), majority of users of instant messages or chats practice the law of "economy of speech means", abounded by acronyms. For example: instead of "please" write "pls"; instead of thanks - "thnx"; instead of you - "u", instead of hello - "hi" instead of today - "Sedna", instead of hi - "prif", instead of what - "che", "sho". Users reduce not only common nouns, but nouns and proper names. Most often, the reduction are the names of cities. For example: instead of writing Kostanay - "Costa", instead of Semipalatinsk - "Semsc", instead of Petropavlovsk - "Peter", instead of Almaty - "Ata", instead Kokshetau - "Koksh", instead of Ust-Kamenogorsk - "Uskaman".

In addition, Toshomanova (2011) mentioned that users instead of the names or phrases use acronyms which consist of two or more words, for example: goodnight - "Spoki". It should be noted that people often use words from other languages, which is also reducted. For example: "rah" (from kaz. "rakhmet") - thank you, "kalai macalay" - how are you , "plz"(from eng.) - please, "ofnutsya" - log off, "ava" - photo of profile. In the lexicon of people coming up with new, stylistically colored words "mades"(from rus.) - well, "vatchik"(from rus.) - loser; oks - ok. Widely spread using of interjections which conveying a variety of feelings. For example: wa-ha-ha, finally, mdaaa, mhm, heh, lol, etc.

Syntax in the messages of users also peculiar: the predominant simple sentences, incomplete and extremely short. Toshmanova, 2011).

The mistakes, which written below done very often (Omar and Miah, 2012):

1. Standard Spelling and Punctuation

2. Grammatical Syntactic rules3. More Graphical rather than Text

4. Absence of Proof Reading5. Reduction in Critical Thinking Abilities

6. Loose of Linearity and Sequencing

Examples have shown that in some cases the progress of information technology has a negative influence on the modern Russian either English language.

Differences in writing habits by the age and gender

When to student are given opportunities to write regularly, his or her writing is improving. By this point not only writing skills improves, but also develops critical-thinking skills. In order to find out the difference in writing by the age, take, for example, the life of American teenagers, all teens write for school, and 93 % (Lenhart,2008) of teens get some enjoyment from the writing that they do for school, although they get more enjoyment from the writing that they do for themselves outside of school. The vast majority of teenagers enthusiastically accept the written communication with their peers, they write messages on the pages of social networks, e-mail, as quickly exchange messages on the Internet, do not forget about mobile phones simplifies all the way of messaging. According to Soldatova (2013) year by year, children and teenagers are spending more time online. According to the studies of Internet Development Fund (2013), in comparison with American, an average 89% of Russian children 12-17 years old, writing throw the Internet, enter the net every or nearly every day at any time and in any place where exist such an opportunity. As compared to the 2010 number written communications of adolescents increased. Let me note, that only half of all respondents adults are parents of teens using the Internet every day. Mostly, teens report that they write short paragraphs that are not research based.

According to Omar and Miah(2012) Girls are slightly more likely than boys to write essays at school (96% of girls do this, compared to 91% of boys), while boys are slightly more likely to write computer programs (13% of boys and 7% of girls have done so in the past year).

The importance of writing in the labor market cannot be overestimated, and two- thirds of salaried jobs in large U.S. companies have some kind of requirements. A recent research of U.S. corporations and government agencies found that good writing skills are vital for employment and advancing in work place. Writing is a complex process that involves many skills, processes and strategies. This requires an average modifiable mean to convey meaning and uses vocabulary, based on known conventions and rules of use, to create new ideas. Good writing is defined by “clarity, accuracy and logical thinking,” among other characteristics (Omar and Miah, 2012). To summarize, these were the most important aspects of writing habits: types of writing, quantity of time, interesting topic, people who teach to write and people's attitude toward considering themselves bad or good writers with a well critical skills.

Factors and causes of changing writing habits

Studies describe several causes why nowadays writing worse than twenty or thirty years earlier. The first factor, according to Moreira (2011), is the dynamic development of modern informational technologies and devices. She points that there were not so many young people always online and with electronic devices 24 hours in 2001. The second reason is according to Watson( 2012) the development of mass media has seen arise in the exploration and sharing of the social world, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are designed as collaborative spaces for open or shared communication (ACMA, 2009). Influence of computers and increase of using of the Internet change the all languages, and today if student look at the old book, I am not sure that they fully understand terms and old words. One of the main problems with regard to communication technologies is that it potentially stimulate social isolation and that it can have a negative effect on language skills, especially on social communication skills, because of that children are spending less time interacting face to face with their family and peers(Omar and Miah, 2012). Now teens prefer to spend free time watching TV, videos, playing computer games, listening to music, chatting with friends and sitting at the internet (Anonymous, 2001).

Maximizing the positive impact of technology in education

In the 21st century classroom, students have access to appropriate technology and digital technological resources for integrated activities of the program on campus, in the area at home or at key locations in the community. Teachers integrate technology a student-centered learning environment where technology is used to solve real-problems in cooperation with business, industry and higher education. Teachers and students apply technology across all subject areas to provide opportunities for learning impossible without technology.

Advantages of the technology in both traditional and online classes are considered. Student needs and wants are investigated to see the positive effects in the educational environment. Learning styles of students related to technology needs and teaching methods. The advantages of online learning and the requirements for success depend on methodology. Finally, the future of innovation and adaptation of technology in education are considered. All studies show that the technology as part of the educational program of the student achievement gains.

According to Fox(2011) In Anchorage, Alaska, at College Gate Elementary, average 6-Traits Writing score in a Technology Teacher Leaders (TTL) participant's third grade classroom increased from 2.1 in the fall of 2007 to 3.8 in the spring of 2008. The Technology Teacher Leaders (TTL) program provides a supported community of K-12 teachers who become leaders in the area of technology integration and who leveraged their skills, knowledge and understanding to help schools improve student learning. Careful planning and considerations are critical in determining each school's needs and best selection and uses of technology to improve student achievement. Schools should assess their technology needs and implement programs that make substantial progress in meeting state and local goals. School leaders who manage Title IA and Title IID funds need to collaborate and make important decisions about the use of the funds. They should consider what makes up a 21st century classroom, library and school. Providing students with the necessary advanced technologies, educational technology programs and practices, and well-trained teachers will enable schools to use innovative teaching strategies designed to engage students and promote critical thinking, problem solving, creativity and college and career readiness skills.

To sum up, writing skills is a very important in education of people and in life in general but it has decreased over time. The data showed the deterioration of writing habits, showed reasons why it is happening, also noted benefits of reading and gave some strategies how to struggle with reduction of writing skills. However, as you can see, all statistical data do not concern Kazakhstan, except some of them. That is why in my further work I will try to do survey and study on writing skills of population of Kazakhstan, as an example of Almaty.

Field Research

Methodology

The purpose of the study is to find relationship between digital tools and how it influence on writing skills of people. To understand the writing habits of people, and determine influence of digital tools on people's writing I conducted my research as a survey through questionnaire. I have chosen this method because it is more suitable and efficient to ask 13 questions. I divided them into the next sections:

· General information about the respondent's age, gender and area of study or profession;

· Questions where people express their attitude and frequency of technology use;

· People's opinion about affecting of technological progress on the way of writing.

40 people participated in my research. I shared out respondents by gender, and also divided them into four age categories to understand how writing habits changed by the age. There are 23 females and 17 males.

The first group are youth people under 18; most of them study at schools. The second age group is people at the age of 18-30, majority of them study at universities, and some of them are working. The third age group includes people at the age of 30-50. And the last group is people who are 50 and over. My data was collected from Almaty citizens, mostly from youth (university and high school students) and adults. I tried to find people of different social status and level of education in order to find more answers that are different.

Results

In this part presented the results of survey. According to the answers of respondents, I described results that I got from questionnaires. Some questions were analyzed by comparing the answers of youth with the answers of adults. Compared gender and area of study and profession, in order to find some differences of writing habits of participants. As I said before, I compared people who use frequently digital devices, to determine in comparison with them, who not use digital tools so often, how it influences on the way of writing. So, the results show that gender does not impact on the writing, but according to the questionnaire the older generation writes in their writing well structured and long sentences more than youth. Also, survey demonstrates that level of education and profession is very important in saving the original means of words. In addition, respondents who use and work with the modern technology prefer to use short phrases, acronyms and auto correctors, which correct mistakes. 

Figure 1. What is the level of your education?

Figure 1 shows the relationship between education levels and ages to compare how it influences the constructing well structured sentences and using short phrases, acronyms and abbreviations.

One of the first questions the respondents were asked was: What is the level of your education? Figure 1 presents that respondents are divided by the level of education, and as you see, only five people from group aged under 18 have participated in the survey; four of them have primary education, and only one has a lower secondary education. From the group of age 18-30 - twenty one people have participated; eighteen of them have a bachelor degree, one a primary education and one a lower secondary education. The group of age of 30 -50 has a nine respondents and three of them have a bachelor degree, four are masters and two out of nine have PhD. Finally, from the last age group 5 people have participated; only one of them has a bachelor degree, two are masters and two have PhD.

The second question which was Is it difficult for me to construct long, well structured sentences? Also in my questionnaire I have the next question Short phrases are much more useful in everyday life rather than long sentences? As it was mentioned, I want to show connections between education levels and difficulties with constructing well-structured sentence and use of acronyms and abbreviations. Figure 2 shows that age group who are under 18 faced difficulties with construction sentences, they like short phrases much more, in fact it confirms statistics, which I show in my literature review, for teenagers it is much easier to write short messages, while of using devices. All of 5 participants with a primary education have problems with long and well structured sentences. They prefer to use abbreviations and acronyms. But at the same time majority of 18- 30 year old participants, who have a bachelor degree used to use acronyms and short abbreviations like participants under 18. Out of 18 who have a bachelor degree ten prefer to use acronyms, and only 7 do not have any problems in constructing full sentences. The reason of this is in the close connection with modern information technologies, usually because of work, and also nonstop developing of digital tools. And other two age groups do not met any difficulties. They prefer to write well-structured and full sentences in contrast with the people who are under 18 and 18- 30 year old participants. Moreover they do not used to use acronyms and short abbreviations.

Figure 2. Is it difficult for me to construct long well structured sentences?

Another question which was asked to respondents was: Do you think that typing is more efficient than handwriting? I compared the result of this question with the result of the next question: Do you think that technology is the one of the reasons of the reducing level of grammar?

Figure 3 demonstrates that two age groups, under 18 and 18 -30, think that typing is more efficient, and adults group (from 30 to 50 and over) think it is not like handwriting, and only one said - I do not know. Adults comment their answer by one main reason, when you write by the hand you try to write words correctly, without mistakes and always check for them, while typing gives opportunities not to think about grammar, syntactic rules, punctuation etc.

Figure 3. Do you think that typing is more efficient than handwriting?

I compared answers of previous question with the next question:

Do you think that technology is the one of the reasons of the reducing level of grammar? One more interesting thing is that, out of 40 participants 34 answered yes to this question. And only six answered no, four of them at the age of 18-30 and two at the age of 30-50. All 34 respondents who answer yes, despite to the fact that nowadays everything written and sended through technologies; there are almost no opportunities to write something by hand. And while typing, they use such options like an auto corrector, or abbreviations to the long phrases or words. Another 6 respondents say that they try not to use the computer. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Do you think that technology is the one of the reasons of the reducing level of grammar?

The next question was: What gadgets do you own? From the graph below (Figure 5) we can see the list of types of devices, preferred by participants.

Figure 5. What gadgets do you own?

According to the results most women use digital tools like laptops, tabs, smart-phones and electronic books. But in comparison with men, women use electronic books more. Also, women use mp3 players and iPods more frequently than men. As graph above shows, in the age under 18 both males and females use all devices except simple mobile phones. For instance, nowadays teenagers prefer to use smart-phones neither simple mobile phones. In the group of age 18-30 and 30-50 results of using the devices are similar between males and females. The last group of respondents, who are 50 and above show that, they use laptops, smart-phones and mobile phones. There are five participants in this, three of them are women and two are men. Only two of them use laptops, one female and one male, it is quite interesting, that almost all females use smart-phones and almost all males use mobile phones. Also I have noticed that most popular device of both genders is a laptop.

And the last question, which the respondents were asked was: Do you think that writing can be taught to children by using modern technologies? Considering the chart below, we see that 32 of all respondents think that it can be used to teach children how to write. 50 and over age group say no. Also three out of 21 respondents from the 18-30 age group answered no.

Figure 6. Do you think that writing can be taught to children by using modern technologies?

Discussion

By considering the issues that I have which were based on received results, in this part of research the paper will explain why such findings were founded.

At first, results demonstrate that adults claim to write well structured and long sentences more than youth generation. Moreover my data shows how education level impact on the way of writing, especially if modern technology touches university or work place. And finally data show differences of relation of generations to the modern technology generously.

In general, my results close to the results from the other countries, if we compare Kazakhstani teenagers and Russian ones, results are the same (Soldatova et.al.). It does not matter where are the teenagers from, all of them subjected to the influence of digital tools. Considering the question of difficulties to construct long well structured sentences, my attention focused on the answers of the second group of respondents at the age of 18- 30. It is interesting that majority of people from this group of respondents have a difficulties with constructing long sentences. They are mostly bachelors. Majority of them uses the Internet, computers, other digital tools for their work or study, and in many cases their writing is corrected automatically and one of the reasons why they have difficulties might be the digital tools. Gulek (2005) also remarked that nowadays people cannot work without computer and use the devices and Internet more often than it used to be. Most of respondent males use acronyms, abbreviations and short phrases, while females try to write original words without abbreviations. In the same time, respondents under 18 also are facing this problem. This category of age includes teenagers and what I think why they have too much problems with writing, because they used to write and read in social networks new words, created by the other teenagers. I think they always make some new word to communicate in their “teenager community”.

From my data and literature review, I mentioned that older generation every time denies any technological devices. According to the question about teaching children through digital tools, all of the respondents from the age group 50 and over answer “no”. On my opinion this is of because of the fact of past life. For example, Kazakhstani people are the generation of the Soviet Union, which had denied all innovations and progress, dictating that if you are progressive you will have bad reputation. That is the huge barrier in the mind of people, because if you are different it is something wrong with you. The same is with the using of new technologies.

Moreover, last several years, the humankind got outstanding things which made the life much easier. You do not need to get your destination on airplane to connect to the Internet; even in the sky you can catch the fast wi-fi. It seems to me that people of our civilization more and more are becoming like disabled people who cannot do the step without the help of technology. The cars or another type of vehicle vanished the need to walk everyday by stimulating the muscles and bones. Nowadays you just need to earn money and our “iron friends” will do everything instead of you.

Conclusion

The study of influencing of digital devices on the writing was already researched in many countries, but Kazakhstani people are not so aware in comparison with other countries about it. Therefore, I decided to focus on this problem and compare my results with others. The main aim was to find out why people now prefer to use shorter sentences in their speech and writing. In general results are similar. Increasingly, the lifestyle and consumption habits of young people are influencing the consumption patterns of developing technologies. (Wilska, 2003). On the other hand, youth or elderly generations not only follow consumptions styles, they also create them. For example, the widespread use of text messaging was largely unexpected by the mobile telecommunications industry. Nevertheless, it became very popular with young adults who are always developed their own SMS language and abbreviations to make messages nearly unintelligible to outsiders (Lacohee, Wakeford, and Pearson, 2003). Text messaging has subsequently become popular with age groups which I asked before. Finally, this topic needed more research. My sample was not enough. Furthermore, will be nice to focus attention also on people who speak several languages, may be they will share with their experience on communicating in other languages also with difficulties which they faced because of slang. Finally, I hope this study helps to understand languages with help of examples which was given in my literature review, also helps to understand Kazakhstani respondents' view and awareness of saving the originality of words and change people's attitude to writing.

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