But some writing advocates say Twitter’s frugal word structure, Facebook’s short-post syntax and acronym-filled text messages are degrading writing skills.

As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

There is plenty of evidence that literacy skills continue to decline. U.S. government data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that after years of educational reforms, high school seniors scored worse on a national reading test than they had back in 1992. Less than three-quarters of U.S. 12th graders scored at at least the “basic” level, down from 80% in the early 1990s.

In the classroom, some educators are attempting to harness the power of technology to increase literacy rates for struggling students, but does using technology really make a difference? An initial assessment of the research on the current generation of technology used to aid literacy yields interesting, if somewhat lackluster, results.