Social Media's Impact on English Grammar

P OL Y T E CHNI C UNI V E RS I T Y OF T HE P HI L I P P I NE S
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction
A revolution is being driven by a fundamental shift in how we communicate
and it enables the unprecedented rise of what is called social media (Monty, 2013).
The participation of the millennials, especially the young adults, in the digital age and
the growth of the number of users of social networking sites such as Facebook and
Twitter - the two most popular social networking sites - is a testament as to how
integral the internet has become to the lives of this generation.
Todays generation relies on the Internet for research, leisure, even news
updates from time to time and most of them are young and educated. As a result,
more and more young people are hooked to the Internet (Santos, 2011). According
to an article entitled This Is How Teens Are Using Social Media, they spend about
10 hours and 45 minutes online per day.
This new social revolution has immense benefits and created a new wave of
networking and socialization. However, regardless of the amount of benefits that the
Internet provides for those who use it, this fascinating entity has severe detrimental
impacts on its users.

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Social networking sites are becoming increasingly more comfortable to use
because of its user-friendly interfaces and has become a common practice,
especially in the Philippines (Forward.ph).The informality of these websites in terms
of writing and communication has made it easy for students to forget the importance
of proper grammar usage and at times, even English majors fail to remember their
basics.
The role the English language plays on whoever studies. It plays an important
role to the student as he/she carries the notion that there is no end to being an
English major. In all facets of life, these students should be mindful of their grammar,
sentence structure, and sorts since they are mastering the oral and written
language. But because of the informality social networking sites employ, does it
mean that it stops there? In some ways, are they grasping at a way to archive a
pace they are only ever just barely keeping up with, only to forget they are learners
of the language?

Background of the study
Social networking sites are expanding daily, together with the saliently
increasing number of users around the world. According to a research from blog
24/7 Wall Street in 2011, Asia dominates the worlds biggest social networking
markets where Facebook penetration (usage per population) is highest. Social
network penetration is incredibly high in the Philippines, reaching 95%. Facebook is
the countrys most popular website, more so than Google, and has a penetration

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rate of 93.9%. The Philippines is also the eighth most popular country for Twitter use
on global scale, with a penetration rate of 16.1% (247wallst.com). After 3 years since
this study was released, a global study called Wave7 confirmed that Philippines is
still the social media capital of the world.
Through the use of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Tumblr and etc..., people can post their thoughts, feelings and pictures online. Some
have long posts that are written in paragraphs and some are short posts written in
sentence or phrase. People tend to post in English language without being
conscious with their grammar. This topic has drawn the interest of the researchers to
conduct this study.
Facebook is such a powerful tool that people will constantly look for things in
life in order to make status updates. The constant updates on Facebook allow
people to be more reflective while using writing skills. On social media sites we tend
to be more concerned with our appearance, rather than focusing on the detail and
accuracy of writing skills. This poses a problem in that students may have difficulty
distinguishing between lack of proper grammar usage on a social network site and
what is expected of them academically, regarding their writing skills. (Shaver, 2012)
As English majors, one should be conscious of his/her grammar in any written
texts especially when it is written in English language. The researchers are aware
that there are some AB English students who commit grammatical errors in
Facebook posts and Tweets, for this instance, the researchers wanted to know how
often do these subjects of this study who are selected AB English students commit

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FEEDBACK

grammatical errors and what are the common errors of the subjects posts in
Facebook and Twitter.
Social Media can undeniably have a positive or negative effect on writing
skills and grammar, depending on the individual and his or her schema of grammar.
In this case the researchers wanted to know the negative effects of social media in
the grammar of the ABE Seniors of Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the
common errors they have committed in Facebook posts and tweets. (Shaver, 2012)

Conceptual Framework

INPUT

Common grammatical errors
committed by the subjects
in terms of:
Facebook posts
Tweets
Frequency of the committed
grammatical errors
Frequency of errors in terms
of its length
Gender who commits more
errors
The frequency of
presumptions as to the
committed grammatical
errors
Emotions of the
subjects as reflected to
the posts
Time and setting
The suggestive
personality of the
subjects

PROCESS

Presentation, analysis
and interpretation of data
gathered by collecting the
errors of the subjects in
their Facebook and Twitter
posts.
OUTPUT

Solutions/
Recommendations

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Figure 1
Research Paradigm
Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework which portrays the process involved
in determining the common errors committed by the ABE Seniors in Facebook and
Twitter posts namely; input, process and output.
The input indicates the common grammatical errors committed by the
subjects in terms of: Facebook posts Tweets, Frequency of the committed
grammatical errors, Frequency of errors in terms of its length, Gender who commits
more errors, the frequency of presumptions as to the committed grammatical errors.
The process indicates the presentation, analysis and interpretation of data
gathered by collecting the errors of the subjects in their Facebook and Twitter posts.
The output indicates the solutions/ recommendations.

Statement of the problem
This study was conducted to determine the common errors committed by the
ABE Seniors in their Facebook posts and Tweets.
Specifically, it attempts to answer the following questions:
Specifically, it attempts to answer the following questions:
1. What are the common errors committed by the subjects in terms of:
1.1 Facebook posts?
1.2 Tweets?
2. What is the frequency of the errors committed?

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3. When did the subjects commit more errors in:
3.1 Long posts?
3.2 Short post?
4. Who committed more errors?
4.1 Boys?
4.2 Girls?
5. Which presumptions as to the committed grammatical errors had the highest
frequency?
5.5 Emotions of the subjects as reflected to the posts
5.6 Time and setting
5.7 The suggestive personality of the subjects


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Chapter 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the related literature and studies after the thorough and
in-depth search done by the researchers followed by the synthesis and relevance of
the reviewed literature and studies.

Foreign literature
According to an article entitled Grammar in the Age of Social Media, people
nowadays, especially students are starting to adapt the social media lingo and
neglect proper English. Social media tends to have more negative effects on
students. Because of this adaptation, they now tend to use bad punctuation, bad
capitalization, bad spelling and bad grammar. They believe that since social media is
technically a part of peoples daily lives, short-speak should stay on social media
and they should still practice proper English and not let the social media lingo take
over.
Another article entitled The Language of the Internet, studies in the US and
UK show that online technologies have influenced the way people read, speak, write
and listen. Though people know the difference between school writing and writing
messages for friends, it is said in the article that technology seems to overpower the
old ways of expressing and communicating.

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Social Media can undeniably have a positive or negative effect on writing skills
and grammar, depending on the individual and his or her schema of grammar. If a
person has exemplary prior knowledge of grammar then social media will reinforce
grammar skills as it can be used as a tool to analyze and correct poor grammar.
However, if a person has poorwriting skills and grammar schema, then social media
can contribute to perpetuate poor grammar usage.
Larocque (2011), who is an author of a book on writing skills, reflects on
words that are overused and misused from her friends on Facebook. Larocque
(2011) discusses how her friends posts comments on the use of nouns as verbs.
Laroque (2011) makes the argument that social media is negatively effecting
grammar skills in the classroom. Students are observing the lack of vocabulary and
improper usage of words on Facebook and may confuse their usage of these words
in the classroom.
According to Rosen (2012), social media sites, such as Facebook, tend to
encourage the rejection of emotions and true feelings. Grammar and writing skills
are not carefully considered when written on social media as opposed to when we
write with pen and paper. On social media sites we tend to be more concerned with
our appearance, rather than focusing on the detail and accuracy of writing skills.
This poses a problem in that students may have difficulty distinguishing between
lack of proper grammar usage on a social network site and what is expected of them
academically, regarding their writing skills.


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Foreign studies
According to a case study entitled The Language on the Internet, the most
common error is the exclusion of apostrophes, making im, wont, cant, theres, hes,
womens and parents when they should be Im, wont, cant, theres, hes, womens
and parents. The study also found out that Twitter is the social networking site who
has the worst spellers followed by Google Plus and Facebook. And the study also
shows some of the actual words that are misspelled such as definitely, separate,
embarrass, achieve, surprise, weird, government and argument.
Emily Shaver said in his study entitled Effects of Social Media on Writing
Skills in the Classroom Following American Psychological Associations Format that
social media can undeniably have a positive or negative effect on writing skills and
grammar, depending on the individual and his or her schema of grammar. He also
stated that the effect of social media on writing skills has grey matter. It is not a black
and white situation on whether or not students writing skills are positively or
negatively affected from social media. The effect of social media on writing skills
varies from each individual.
Also, she made a conclusion in her study that if a student has poor grammar
skills, a social media site is not going to make their writing skills any worse; it may
just assist in perpetuating the poor grammar skills.

Local literature
B. L. A. N. K


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Local Studies
A study made by some researchers from Polytechnic University of the
Philippines entitled The Perceived Effects of Social Media Sites and Search
Engines to the Vocabulary Development of Selected Grade 7 Students of Ramon
Magsaysay (Cubao) High School said that online and mobile technologies have
widely impacted written language, especially that of teenagers and young adults
since these technologies are used by the students most of the time.
In another research by Gina L. Fajutnao entitled English Proficiency among
CAL Freshmen, she said that the continuing decrease of English proficiency among
college students should be an alarming signal for both parents and teachers to exert
effort promoting the English language among children and students. In addition, her
studies found out that though 74% of the respondents believe that English is the
second language and it should be given importance, the respondents have poor
proficiency in English.
Another study is the Social Networking and Its Impact on Filipino
According to a study entitled Facebuking: Uncovering Filipino Culture in
Facebook, the study shows that Filipinos use Facebook to keep in touch rather than
initiate new relationships. The study also came up with six types of Facebook users
to determine the types of Filipino Facebook users. Thesis are 1) the
(face)bookworm, 2) the paimportante, 3) ikaw na ang badtrip, 4) appdated, 5)
nagfacebook ka pa and papansin (Acasio, A. et.al, 2020).

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Chapter 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this study is to determine the common errors committed in
Facebook and Twitter posts by the fourth year AB English students of Polytechnic
University of the Philippines.
This chapter discusses the research method, research instrument, the
respondents, population, sample size, sampling technique, data gathering procedure
and statistical treatment of data.

Method of Research
The researchers used the descriptive qualitative method of research in order
to find the detailed data and descriptions for our study. Descriptive qualitative
method of research does not focus on the production of objective and reproducible
data but is concerned with meaning, and how it informs subjective understanding
(Hollway and Jefferson, 2000).
The ultimate goal of qualitative descriptive research or case study is to
improve practice. This presupposes a cause/effect relationship between behavior
and outcome; however, this method will only let you hypothesize about variables
and describe them. (Ahatter, 2009)

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The researchers believe that the said method provides an accurate
description and interpretation of the data gathered for this study.

Population, Sample Size and Sampling Technique
The researchers used purposive sampling technique following the descriptive
method in gathering data. Since purposive sampling technique is used in this study,
the researchers did not compute for a sample size for this study.

Description of respondents
The subjects of this study were selected fourth year AB English students of
the Polytechnic University of the Philippines SY 2014-2015. The criteria set by the
researchers to select the subjects for this study were as follows: (1) must be a bona
fide student of the AB English program (2) must be an active user of Facebook
and/or Twitter (3) must have Facebook and Twitter posts that are written in English
language.

Research Instrument
This study does not require formulating an instrument to gather data
henceforth,the subjects Facebook posts and Twitter posts were used in data-
gathering procedure.

Data Gathering Procedure

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The subjects Facebook posts and Twitter posts were used in data-gathering
procedure. The researchers used the World Wide Web with the use of internet to
access Facebook and Twitter links. The researchers used their accounts in the said
social networking sites to look and access the accounts of the subjects and
searched for the subjects posts which have grammatical error/s. These posts which
have grammatical errors were printed as the researchers data and been recorded in
tally sheets. After the tally has been done, the data were transferred to tables for the
statistical treatment

Statistical Treatment
The statistical treatment of data gathered in this study involved the use of
percentage.
1. Frequency is used to determine the number of responses to the survey
with regards to the questionnaires.
2. Percentage is the representation of frequency as it is a part of a hundred.
Formula:
100
N
n
P

Where:
P percentage
n number of respondents
N total number of respondent

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100 constant


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Social Media's Impact on English Grammar

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P OL Y T E CHNI C UNI V E RS I T Y OF T HE P HI L I P P I NE S

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