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Brianna Mcrae

Professor McGriff

ENC 1101

04 November 2019

Social Media Argument Essay

When the internet broke in 1983, who would’ve known that it would change the world

the way it did. There are many different types of social media like Facebook, Snapchat,

Instagram, etc. When joining social media you connect yourself with people all over the world

that you would’ve never known about until joining that platform. Many people use these

platforms to share their thoughts, pictures and so much more. There has been a continuous

argument that social media and texting negatively impacts the way people now communicate.

Although many people believe that social media and texting hasn’t damaged the way we

communicate, social media declines communication skills, damages our English language, and

decrease social interaction and vocabulary.

Social Media is one of the most common ways people now use to communicate but is this

hurting us more than it is helping? According to John McWhorter, author of ​Is Texting Killing

The English Language? ​“Civilization, then, is fine people banging away on their smartphones

are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no

evidence that texting is ruining composition skills” (2).In other words, McWhorter believes that

people are going to text and post differently than they actually speak. In certain predicaments,

that way of thinking is not always true. Now unless you run across someone in a store or have an
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interview, having a face to face conversation with someone is rare. If you were to speak at a

professional event or have so sit before someone and hold a serious conversation it would be

hard for you to use correct grammar and have good communication skills when you’re

accustomed to using slang terminology.

In this generation, there’s an abbreviation for almost every word and there’s an extreme

usage of “slang”, which is a type of informal language. There are apps out there that educate you

on words that you don't know or you can see people from different educational backgrounds use

different words or phrases and with Google, you can instantly learn what it means. David

​ rote about John Humphrys and how he argued that “Texters

Crystal, author of ​2b or not 2b? W

are vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years

ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our

vocabulary. And they must be stopped”(899). In other words, Humphrys believes that texting has

demeaned the english language. Humphrys is surely right about how texting has done great

damage to proper speaking because, as she may not be aware of a recent study by Bridget

Nicola Lewis- Mohabir,​ english language butchered: a study of the correlational relationship

between text messaging frequency and the instance of jargon informal writing ​has shown how

there has been a great decline over the years in the usage of proper english. The more you tend to

abbreviate and use slang the more it's going to show up in your writing and language.

The more people you meet the more connections you have and with social media you can

find hundreds of people to connect with. Social media is a touchy subject because there's a lot

you can argue on any side. Spending to much time on social media can refrain from any social

interaction because you’ve become so used to having informal conversations that when it's time
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to sit down at a social event it's hard for you to socially interact with others. On the contrary,

social media is connected to so many people and opportunities. Graff, author of ​They Say I Say:

The Moves That Matter s​ tates that “With just a few taps on a keyboard, we can be connected

with what others have said not only throughout history, but right now, in the most remote

places”(166). Basically, Graff is saying that with the internet there’s so much social activity

happening now and that you can still have the ability to find social interactions between people

from the past. Ultimately, my goal is to demonstrate that there are many social interactions

happening on social media daily, not just from the present but you can also find some from the

past as well. William J. Mitchell,​ a​ uthor of ​getting together​ argues “That the Internet encourages

a variety of social relationships. He asserts that as individuals become more interested and

bonded with each other using electronic media, they inevitably desire more face-to-face

meetings(Mitchell 2004). Basically, Mitchell was saying that the more you communicate with

someone over the media the stronger your desire will be to meet them face-to-face.

Just like any other argument, there's a positive and negative side. Social media is one of

those things that are more harmful than beneficial. Therefore, having face-to-face

communication is important when you began instructing kids about social interaction. Learning

important skills like eye contact or body language is something you can't experience scrolling

through Instagram. Having the ability to hold proper communication skills is an important skill

that we must embed in this generation and the next ones to come.
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Works Cited

Crystal, David. “2b or not 2b?” ​Everyone's An Author,​ edited by Marylin Moller, W.W. Norton
& Company,2017, 899-907.
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. ​They Say I Say: The Moves That Matter.​ W.W. Norton &
Company, 2018.
McWhorter, John. “​Is Texting Killing The English Language?”​ Time.com, 25 April 2013,
ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/is-texting-killing-the-english-language/print/
Mitchell, William J. "The Internet Promotes Social Interaction." ​The Information Revolution,
edited by Laura K. Egendorf, Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints. ​Gale In
Context: Opposing Viewpoints
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ3010147238/OVIC?u=lincclin_sjrcc&sid=OVIC&xid=
d7ee13ea. Accessed 31 Oct. 2019.