How Internet Slang Affects High School Students
My newest piece for U.S. News & World Report looks into the effects of social media and texting in the high school classroom. For this piece, I spoke with a high school student, a high school teacher, college professors and a dean of college admissions to get their thoughts on this problem. It was interesting to hear how each person reacted to this use of slang, and how students where using this language — whether they were cutting the ends off words (for example: ridiculous becoming ridic) or acronyms for words (like BTW for “by the way”).
I was interested to see whether this has had an effect on the admissions process — as we all know, sometimes high school teachers will let some lax language slide but these types of practices aren’t deemed acceptable in college; and especially not during college admissions.
Here’s an excerpt from my piece:
In fact, 64 percent of students in the study reported inadvertently using a form of shorthand native to texting or social networking. But, the problem does not end there, as Sakowicz acknowledges that younger teachers see the slang but “let it go.”
“Not that they like it, but they kind of expect it,” she says. “Teachers that are older and aren’t familiar with all the social media devices are really upset that this is what’s becoming of our language.”
Read the full article at USNews.com.
