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But do social networking sites have any educational benefits? Aside from helping students to make new friends, do social networking sites facilitate learning? The answer seems to be that they do. The National Literacy Trust found that social networking sites and blogs help students to develop more positive attitudes toward writing and to become more confident in their writing abilities. According to one of the studies, 49 per cent of young people believe that writing is “boring.” However, students who use technology-based texts such as blogs have more positive attitudes toward writing. Whereas 60 per cent of bloggers say that they enjoy writing, only 40 per cent of non-bloggers find writing enjoyable. The study also showed that students who write blogs or maintain a profile on a social networking site tend to be more confident about their writing ability. More than 60 per cent of students who blog and 56 per cent of students who have a profile on a social networking site claim to be “good” or “very good” writers, compared with only 47 per cent of those who don’t use online formats. Having a blog also affects writing behaviour. Students who are active online are significantly more likely to keep a journal or write short stories, letters or song lyrics than those without a social networking presence. According to the ­research, 13 per cent of students have their own website, 24 per cent write a blog and 56 per cent have a profile on a ­social networking site. Of the five kinds of writing that students engaged in most regularly, four were technology based: 82 per cent of students sent text messages (77 per cent of these messages were notes, answers to questions asked in class or remarks about homework assignments), 73 per cent used instant messaging, 67 per cent sent e-mails and 63 per cent wrote on social networking sites. The study also explored why young people who lack confidence in their writing ability perceive themselves to be poor writers. Although the reasons varied with each age group, 20 per cent of the older students attributed their poor writing skills to the fact that they do not write much.

Dr. Spencer Jordan, a creative writing teacher in the School of Education at the University of Wales, notes that web ­technologies encourage young people to write confidently about things they enjoy. He notes, “When I was a kid, I used to write in exercise books kept in a drawer, but now that young people write on the web, there’s a whole ­community out there to read their work. It’s interactive, and that makes it more appealing to them.” Jordan believes that encouraging students to share their writing boosts their confidence in their writing abilities.

Dyslexic students struggle with word formation, and as a result, often cannot express themselves fully in writing, and demonstrate their true level of knowledge. Teachers are thus unable to assess their work correctly, as the writing difficulties pose constraints to the students’ ability to show their knowledge and comprehension. Technology can greatly improve the education of dyslexic students. It can allow them to reach their full capabilities, and to overcome the learning difficulties that arise from problems with handwriting. In general, having an access to computer can greatly improve dyslexic students’ academic results, creating a level playing field among all students. As keyboarding has become a wide-used skill in today’s educational practice, more general introduction of keyboarding software promises great benefits for dyslexic students. Features such as standard letter fonts, automated editing, spell-check, and word processors with text predict all simplify writing for dyslexic students. Devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, e-book readers and tablets/laptops have been increasingly used in education. The level of their usefulness for dyslexic students depends on their built-in features, including text-to-speech and speech-to-text functionalities, format of the text, the screen resolution and memory, connectivity for connecting external devices such as higher quality microphones, and ability to run multiple programmes at the same time. The use of computer technology further extends to a growing number of software specifically designed for students with reading and writing difficulties.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

ven accomplished book readers like Zachary Sims, 18, of Old Greenwich, Conn., crave the ability to quickly find different points of view on a subject and converse with others online. Some children with dyslexia or other learning difficulties, like Hunter Gaudet, 16, of Somers, Conn., have found it far more comfortable to search and read online.

What is different now, some literacy experts say, is that spending time on the Web, whether it is looking up something on Google or even britneyspears.org, entails some engagement with text.

“I think it makes sense for these social conversations to be lightweight or light-hearted in terms of the syntax,” said President of Dictionary.com Shravan Goli. “But ultimately, in the world of business and in the world they will live in, in terms of their jobs and professional lives, students will need good, solid reading and writing skills. I’m a little worried about where we are in America with literacy levels dropping. Are these [electronic devices] helping us, or making it worse? I think they may be going the other way and making it worse.”

I think that is where we come into play with Dictionary.com,” Goli said. “I have two kids at home. I see them using this technology, and I think there is a lot of value in leveraging that technology for educational purposes. Using these ‘cool’ technologies are great vehicles for teaching kids the proper ways to communicate.”

Crystal (2008: 162) also claims “children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed considerable literacy awareness”. Being able to write in text language comes after mastering standard writing. We should therefore see texting as an addition to our language, not a replacement.

Shanahan points to the more than 30 billion e-mail messages and 5 billion text messages that are exchanged every day as evidence of how technology “is raising the value of reading in our society, both as an economic and as a social activity.”

In coming years literacy will mean knowing how to choose between print, image, video, sound, and all the potential combinations they could create to make a particular point with a specific audience,” says Bronwyn Williams, associate professor of English at the University of Louisville.

“I think we often don’t give kids enough credit with their control over language,” says Eric Paulson, associate professor of literary education at the University of Cincinnati. “They can text ‘IMHO’ on their cell phones, write ‘my own opinion is’ in a school essay, and read ‘it is my belief that your scar hurts when Lord Voldemort is near you’ without getting discombobulated.” Switching from a language appropriate for a text message to a linguistic mode more appropriate for addressing a teacher or writing an essay is a practice young people can easily be comfortable with.

Prior to the 21st century, literate defined a person’s ability to read and write, separating the educated from the uneducated. With the advent of a new millennium and the rapidity with which technology has changed society, the concept of literacy has assumed new meanings.

Perhaps literacy, and numeracy for that matter, have never really been optional for fully functioning members of society. In our 21st century society—accelerated, media-saturated, and automated—a new literacy is required, one more broadly defined than the ability to read and write.

Despite doom-laden prophecies, texting has not been the disaster for language many feared, argues linguistics professor David Crystal.

There is increasing evidence that it helps rather than hinders literacy.

When messages are longer, containing more information, the amount of standard orthography increases. Many texters alter just the grammatical words (such as "you" and "be").

This was not how it was supposed to have turned out. A number of studies have been released that suggested a negative correlation between Internet use and reading. Fortunately, those studies are now considered to have been unduly alarmist, according to several experts in the field.

ndeed, despite fears that the Internet would stunt the reading of books, the sale of books has continued to trend upward over the past several years. In 2005, sales jumped 9.9%, to $25 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers.

With such a large proportion of reading and writing taking place on the Internet, literacy has changed from a solitary pursuit into a collective one.

“What we’re labeling as ‘distraction,’ some see as a failure of adults to see how these kids process information,” Ms. Purcell said. “They’re not saying distraction is good but that the label of ‘distraction’ is a judgment of this generation.”

The surveys also found that many teachers said technology could be a useful educational tool. In the Pew survey, which was done in conjunction with the College Board and the National Writing Project, roughly 75 percent of 2,462 teachers surveyed said that the Internet and search engines had a “mostly positive” impact on student research skills. And they said such tools had made students more self-sufficient researchers.