SIR: Social media has made information and communication accessible to everyone irrespective of age, time, distance and many more. The world has become a global village with new technological advancement and the free flow of information and media content.
The advent of social media has impacted on the way students communicate with one another especially in written form. Colloquialism is acceptable in spoken language but never in formal writing. Indeed, the way students communicate has changed completely because of the frequent use of social media like facebook, tweeter, 2go, BBM, Whatsapp, Badoo, and so on.
However, these modern forms of communication that students use while chatting or interacting in social media is gradually influencing the way students write in the school. We have heard several reports or cases of such abnormal writing skills that have been developed or adopted by students due to their constant interaction in the social media. Terms such as laugh out loud or lot of love are being abbreviated to (lol), BRB to mean, be right back, UW to mean you welcome, U to represent you, letter D to represent the, R to represent are, and many other words and terms like that.
Lecturers and teachers have reported a dramatic decline in the writing abilities of students. They do not capitalise words or use punctuation marks rightly anymore. Universities, polytechnics, colleges and even secondary schools are complaining about the trend of communication style being used by students via the use of social media.
The opportunities that are inherent in the use of social media have been strongly abused especially by the students. Most students do not know the appropriate time to use social media. They use it even when their lecturers, teachers are in class lecturing or teaching and sometimes, lecturers would have to seize their phones and enforce punishment on such students.
Consequently, the need for media literacy education becomes imperatives for children who are approaching adolescent age. This will give the children early and proper understanding of how to broaden their thoughts, skills, knowledge and provide them the opportunity to explore, learn and share his/her views with other people around the world.
• Habiba Abubakar Yahaya
IBB University, Lapai, Niger State.