Let’s explore these findings in more depth. Teenagers may not be reading books, but they are clearly interested in social networking. So the question becomes whether social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube are harming students or helping them. Social networking sites, which began as social communities, are becoming increasingly important. Barack Obama, for example, used such sites to great advantage during his successful campaign to become United States president.
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.
kevin johnson on 14 Aug 14"The Lost Art of Conversation Technology such as text messages and email allows us to communicate in short, carefully-edited sentences that lack immediacy and completely remove the contextual information provided by tone of voice and body language. As a result, people who connect with others primarily through technology might find it difficult to engage in normal conversation, since they may have issues understanding non-verbal cues due to lack of practice with face-to-face interaction that can't be paused, edited or filtered. Deteriorating Language Books, dictionaries and treatises have been written on the vocabulary and peculiarities of online and text messaging slang. This slang can prove extremely confusing for people who are not native English speakers, making it harder to discern the meaning of a sentence; people who regularly text or chat online may end up using it, out of sheer habit, even in situations where it is inappropriate or out of place, such as in business messages or school essays. Enabling Rudeness Because communicating through technology creates a barrier between people that isn't there when speaking face to face, some may find it easier to be rude and aggressive. Insulting or threatening messages from anonymous commenters are par for the course for anybody who regularly publishes online content, and even lack of anonymity doesn't alleviate the issue -- Facebook arguments and the like are also relatively common. Sherry Turkle, professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, suggests that this happens because technology keeps us from having to see the reaction of the person on the receiving end of the message, making it harder to empathize with him. Constant Disruption Technology allows us to always be reachable if we want to be, no matter where we are or what we're doing. Although this can be beneficial, it may also lead to a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety in which people feel pressured to immediately check and answer any i
