How social media messages hamper learning of English

The traditional learning where the teacher was the pillar of knowledge is dwindling with the coming of the internet and its potent offshoot-social media. [iStockphoto]

The art of storytelling around a fireplace is gone. Riddles and wise sayings are no longer handed down by word of mouth but online.

Similarly, the hottest gossips are no longer whispered under a tree but through a multiplicity of platforms that include messaging on vehicles, khanga pieces (lessos) and the latest entrant: club message boards. Unfortunately, this new style of communication has found its way into classrooms with gloomy prospects.

Let’s face it, the traditional learning where the teacher was the pillar of knowledge is dwindling with the coming of the internet and its potent offshoot-social media.

Learners can acquire information on their own with the touch of a button. With the transition of Grade 10 of the Competence Based Education to senior school next year, the learners reliance on internet (including social media) will become mainstreamed in education.

However, social media has adopted short message alerts on posters that are frequently splashed on several platforms. Even mainstream media have adopted message boards, which are constantly updated as news stories develop. But nowhere has these message boards taken people by storm more than in entertainment joints. Here, everything goes from political shibboleths to outright salacious content.

Needless to say, this onslaught of message boards has negatively affected the study of English and Literature in schools. For instance, when students are required to write a composition of 450 words, they resort to social media contraction tricks in doing it. Frequently, they employ social media shortening skills and effectively end up writing compositions of only 250 words or fewer.

They dismantle the English language diction in their enthusiasm of simplifying standard dictionary words, courtesy of social media tutelage. Words like because, come on and thank you have been bastardized to “coz, con, thenks,  respectively. This is detrimental in learning English and Literature in schools.

Message boards paraded by waitresses in entertainment joints can have ripple effect. I came across one that stated “ Don’t Bring Many English Here Talk More Shillings.” Such a message might make sense to business people, but if a student copies such a phrase in their writing,  it will be penalized as ambiguous and, to some extent, vague.

The use of these message boards is also common in television shows. During broadcasting of news, many young people do not have time to digest the entire news. Their eyes are fixed to the continuous streaming of news tickers at the bottom of the screen. It is disastrous that scores of learners only watch TV documentaries and TikTok, Instagram and Facebook reels that have subtitles. Picking the main points through content without sub titles is too much intellectual work!

On the flip side, social media message boards have their advantages. They are a quick way of relaying information to busy people who may not have time for in-depth reading or listening to anything. Message boards are easily downloadable and shareable hence they trend quickly like a bush fire.

But I posit here that the use of message boards is a lazy way of communicating. Learners and general populace feed are being fed on summaries and news alerts without getting the stories behind the scenes. Literary analysis is overtaken by shallow and pointed messages.

As fellow teachers of English and literature can testify, our learners at all levels have joined the brevity movement of memes, emojis, stickers, Graphics Interchange Format (GIFs) and short videos. This will ultimately have collateral damage on learning of English and Literature in schools if we don’t fight the laziness in writing and reading in English.

George Mwangi teaches English and Literature at St.Charles Lwanga High School in Thika.