The Effect of Social Media Usage to the Written Discourse of

Grade 11 Mapua Senior High School Students

I. Background of the Study

Social media, according to the direct definition from dictionaries, refers to the interactive
computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas,
career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. It refers to
the websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in
social networking. Social media are web-based communication tools that enable people to
interact with each other by both sharing and consuming information.

"Each browser of this network benefited from the multimedia available in it, and became
the best way to achieve communication between individuals and groups, and then appeared
websites, blogs and chat networks, which changed the content and form of modern media, and
created a kind of communication between owners and users, on the one hand, and users
themselves on the other hand."(Othman & Musa, 2014).

As generations pass, the uses and advantages of social media changes and it is becoming
broader and wider in terms of flexibility. The possibilities are becoming more and more limitless.
It is not only used for direct man-to-man communication but is also used for different purposes.
Another example is that the use of social media potentially helped people, especially students, in
terms of language learning. It is observed that people tend to be exposed to reading and seeing
texts that are new to their eyes and make them learn from it.

According to Greenstein of the Social Media Club-NYC (2016), social media are the
online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights,
experiences, perspectives, and media themselves. They are media for social interaction. You
can tell social software because it is no fun to use by yourself – an account with no friends
connected has no value.
These social media websites may contain various articles, news, and other information
that the users can access. In return, the people who use the said social media websites gain
knowledge from reading the materials found in the platform. It not only does it improve their
knowledge about what’s happening around the world but also enhances their basic language
skills as they read.

The American linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated the following
definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group
cooperates.” Any succinct definition of language makes a number of presuppositions and begs a
number of questions. The first, for example, puts excessive weight on “thought,” and the second
uses “arbitrary” in a specialized, though legitimate, way.

. The study of language is a part of general knowledge. We study the complex working of
the human body to understand ourselves where the same reason as why ae we studying the
marvelous complexity of human language, but from time to time the social media changes the
grammatical structure that results to the speech inflections, syntax and even use wrong use of
word formation, it changes the grammatical structure we use to communicate with others by
abbreviating some words, removing some of the vowels of words and as this happen it lessen the
enthusiasm of the people to fix and learn proper use of grammar. These aspects of language are
the essentials for a person to be considered as a well-skilled communicator.

John McWhorter, an associate professor of English and comparative literature at

Columbia University or as Guy Deutscher said in his seminal work, "The Unfolding of
Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention," language is "what makes us
human."

The study of language is a part of general knowledge. We study the complex working of
the human body to understand ourselves where the same reason as why ae we studying the
marvelous complexity of human language, but from time to time the social media changes the
grammatical structure that results to the speech inflections, syntax and even use wrong use of
word formation, it changes the grammatical structure we use to communicate with others by
abbreviating some words, removing some of the vowels of words and as this happen it lessen the
enthusiasm of the people to fix and learn proper use of grammar.

Nowadays, modern generations adapt to the things they see around them including the
internet. As a result, they tend to attain different skills that enables them to develop social
abilities such as writing and speaking. But as the researchers noticed, most people, especially
students, has a big gap between their writing and their speaking abilities and skills. Some people
are believed to have greater skills in writing than speaking and some are the opposite.

Discourse is a term used to explain the transfer of information from one person to
another. It implies the use of words and sentences in context for the purpose of conveying
meaning. Written Discourse is very important matter especially to the students and young people
as they are currently under schooling which requires massive written activities and outputs as
projects. It is important to know and seek more about this type of ability. According to
Study.com, Written discourse it involves the written word. To be successful, the writer and the
receiver must have the necessary skills for delivery of information; the writer must be able to
write, and the reader must be able to read. Written discourse is often tied with genre, or the type
and/or structure of language used to imply purpose and context within a specific subject matter,
especially when looking at literature.

That is why the researchers aimed to focus on the written discourse of the young
generation. They are about to discover the relation of the usage of the modern technology, social
media, to their writing skills and ability. For this study, the researchers aim to know if social
media has a significant effect to the written discourse of the Grade 11 Senior High School
Students from Mapua University.

The researches chose to set Grade 11 Senior High Schools as their respondents because
they are perfect for being the samples for acquiring accurate answers and results. They are
exactly capable of taking the questionnaires and interviews that will be given as they are under
the young generation, the generation Z and they are believed to use different social media
applications very frequently. Also, they are studying in a University that focuses on measuring
writing abilities of students and with that, they are perfect for samples that are used to writing
different type of contexts.

II. Previews Studies

A. 5 RRL’s

One of the studies is about the relationship between social media

and academic performance of students focuses on the researchers’
observation and follow-up of these sites. The aim of the paper is to
highlight the impact of social media on students in the higher educational
universities and its impact on the students’ academic performance. With
the variables of Students, Facebook, and Social Media the findings that the
researchers got that the study indicates a large number of University
students are using social media with more focus on Facebook which in
turn negatively affect the academic results. According to Hashem, Y.
(2015), the study concluded that a large number of students in universities
are addicted to the social media, specifically Facebook and there is high
participation in social networks that make students lose focus on academic
tasks and negatively affect their academic results.
In another research among the studies, its aim is to be able to use
social media as a platform to unite users around the world. The idea
behind the social media is far from ground breaking, nevertheless, there
seems to be confusion among manages and academic researches alike as
to what exactly should be included under this term, and how social media
differ from Web2.0 and User Generated Content, It therefore make sense
to take a step back and provide insight regarding where social media come
from and what they include (Almarwaey, 2017).
Another research study was conducted to seek for the effects of
using social media to the academic performances of the modern students
and how it helps them to get high grades in school. The objective of the
research was to find out the type of impact of social media to students.
According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), after conducting the research, it
is clear that social media does not impact school students academic
performances in any way because although they spend hours surfing on
social media platforms, the still find ways to study and get high grades on
their subjects.
 The fourth paper aims to explore the academic students’ purposes
for using social-networking sites (SNSs) to enhance self-efficacy (SE) of
learning English Language. According to Habes et al. (2018), the results of
the study shows that there is no significant difference between male and
female groups in familiarizing with SNSs. The most important academic
purpose of using SNSs item for students was to let them communicate
with classroom on courses topics and share ideas conveniently.
The last paper of the five aims to study the attitude of teachers on
language learning through social media instead of the students. According
to the researcher, the results of the study can be summed up to- the attitude
of the EFL teachers towards language learning through social media, the
role of social media in their foreign language learning experiences and the
relationships between attitudes and independent variables. EFL teachers
have positive attitudes the use of social media in language learning

B. Synthesis
- The five related research journals, in over-all, studied the different
relationships of the use of the internet and social media to the
performances of the people when it comes to language learning. Some
focus on the assessing students’ self-efficacy, their academic impact and
development and some tackled about language learning.
According to Hashem, Y. (2015), a large number of students in
universities are addicted to the social media, specifically Facebook and
there is high participation in social networks that make students lose focus
on academic tasks and negatively affect their academic results.
Some studies found that the use of Social Networking Sites
(SNS’s) help young people to communicate with their peers that enables
them to share ideas toeach other.
. According to Habes et al. (2018), the results of the study shows
that there is no significant difference between male and female groups in
familiarizing with SNSs. The most important academic purpose of using
SNSs item for students was to let them communicate with classroom on
courses topics and share ideas conveniently.
 Most of the researches used interview and answerable
assessments, questionnaires to gather the data and information needed for
their methodology and computations. The participants were students and
other people who are active users of social media sites. There are different
results from the literatures wherein some say that there are no significant
effect and some resulted to there is a significant effect in using social
media to the performances of the samples.
According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), it is clear that
social media does not impact school students academic performances in
any way because although they spend hours surfing on social media
platforms, the still find ways to study and get high grades on their
subjects.
But majority of them tells that often browsing and surfing to social
media sites an platforms positively affects the performances of the users in
terms of language learning, academic activities and performances and
over-all self-efficacy.

C. Gap
- These five related research studies aimed to discover the effects of
the use of internet to the over-all learning skills of students but they did
not focus on learning in specific fields and subparts of language such as
vocabulary, grammar, written discourse and proper
punctuations/pronunciations. In this study, the researchers will investigate
the effects of social media to the written discourse of students.

III. Statement of the Problem

A. Purpose Statement
- The purpose of this study aims to discover the possible effect of Social
Media to the written discourse of Grade 11 Senior High School students in
Mapúa University through answerable questionnaires and interviews.
B. Research Questions
 - How does using different social media applications affect the ability of
Grade 11 Senior High School Students in writing?
- What are the differences between the written discourses of the people who
often use social media to those who don’t?
- How are the writing skills and the speaking ability of the Senior High
School students different?
- How can Social Networking Sites help in the development of the written
discourse of the Grade 11 Senior High School Students?

IV. Abridged Methodology

- The participants of this study will be Grade 11 Senior High Schools
students of Mapúa University who are active users of different Social
Media sites. The study's data collection will be held in Mapúa University,
Intramuros, Manila. In the study's data collection, the method of collecting
data from the participants is by the use of face-to-face interview. The
questions in the interview will seek answers and will test and investigate
the participants on how does social media affects the writing skills/written
discourse of the participants.

V. References
A. 10-15 references (APA)

- Al-Fadda, H. & Al-Yahya, M. (2016) Using web blogs as a tool to

encourage pre-class reading, post-class reflections and
collaboration in higher education. US-China Education
Review, 7(7), pp. 100-106.
- Almarwaey, A. (2017). Using Social-Networking Sites in Learning
English Language and Students’ Self-Efficacy. US-China
Education Review A. 7. 10.17265/2161-623X/2017.05.003.

- Antoniadou, V. (2011).Using Activity Theory to understand the

contradiction in an online transatlantic collaboration between
 student-teachers of English as a foreign language.
ReCALL, 23(3), pp. 233-251.
- Atmaca, Y. (2013). Student Teachers and Teacher Educators Perceptions
about the Use of Facebook in English Language Teaching.
Unpublished Master's Thesis, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.
- Aydin, S. (2013). Second Life as a Foreign Language Learning
Environment: A Review of Research. Turkish Online Journal of
Distance Education, 14(1), 53-63.

- Aydin, S. (2014). EFL Writers Attitudes and Perceptions toward F-

Portfolio Use. TechTrends, 58(2), pp. 59-77.
- Habes, M., Alghizzawi, M., Khalaf, R., Salloum, S. & Abd Ghani, M.
(2018).The Relationship between Social Media and Academic
Performance: Facebook Perspective. International Journal of
Information Technology and Language Studies. 2. 12-18.
- Hashem, Y. (2015). The Impact of Social Media on the Academic
Development of School Students. International Journal of Business
Administration. 6(46), 10.5430/ijba.v6n1p46.
- Kaplan, A. & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the World, Unite! The
Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons.
53. 59-68. 10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003.
- Pre-service EFL Teachers Attitudes towards Language Learning through
Social Media - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-role-of-social-media-in-
pre-service-EFL-teachers-language-learning-
experience_tbl2_309339628 [accessed 11 Mar, 2019]