The human being is genetically programmed to live in a society and experience its advantages and disadvantages. The function of technology is to find new ways of enhancing this natural process of interaction. So it need not come as a surprise that with the advent of the internet, the web page has played a part in facilitating this interaction with varying degrees of effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to assess whether this technology has helped to enhance the critical thinking ability and the effective writing skills of a person. “A social networking site is an online place where a user can create a profile and build a personal network that connects him or her to other users.” (Lenhart & Madden, 2007).
Critical thinking and social networking
There is a general belief that the people who need to exercise critical thinking are detectives, lawyers, scientists, and people associated with intellectual professions. But this is not true, in the sense that critical thinking is beneficial or even essential for people from all walks of life. Critical thinking can be simply defined as the ability to, think about an issue with an open mind without taking into account preconceived notions, not be prejudiced or biased, not rely on partial or wrong information, ask relevant questions, patiently and honestly analyze answers and communicate effectively with others. “Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced.” (Scriven & Paul, 2007).
Email facility: Since many sites offer email facilities, this feature is taken for discussion. An email like a letter is just one-way communication and does not have much relevance in this topic.
Blogging
Most of the blogs had content based more on thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Almost all such sites have predetermined classifications and include major topics of relevance. None of the blogs visited had written that that exhibited qualities of critical thinking. A blog under the category ‘Jobs and Careers’ had a write-up on a change of job for the writer. It just described the excitement and challenge of the new job and the best wishes from readers of the blog. Instances of crude language were also seen.
Video-Sharing: A majority of videos were personal, visually appealing, or spectacular in nature. The topics ranged from advertisements of the owner’s talents (like videos of a music group from India), family and children and some professionally made videos like film trailers.
Groups
The trend shown in the above categories is reflected here also. Some categories like science and history (example, groups on quantum physics, space and universe etc.) did have discussions that exhibited critical thinking.
Social networking and effective writing
Effective writing implies research, writing the first draft, reading and editing probably more than once till a satisfactory style is achieved. “Vigorous research, an original thesis, intriguing insight, and effective grammar alone are insufficient to write clearly and convincingly.” (Johns, Fox & Silvia, 2004, p.1).
Blogs and Groups
The writing style seems like as if the writer was just putting his or her thoughts on paper or in this case, the web. In many cases it is conversational in nature with lot of dashes and commas and exclamation marks. This way of writing is found in almost all the blogs and Groups visited.
Video sharing
Literature does not play much part in this category. The only writing found was for the description of the video and except for a few cases, was very short in length.
Conclusion
From what was studied from a social networking site, it just reflects a normal human society where feelings and emotions predominate, with very little instances of critical thinking or effective writing. The conclusion is that social networking does not enhance critical thinking or effective writing skills.
Reference
Johns, J., Fox, T., & Silvia, R. (2004). Effective Writing: Guidelines. P. 1. Web.
Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2007). Reports: Family, Friends and Community. Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview. Pew Internet and American Life project. Web.
Scriven, M., & Paul, R. (2007). Why critical thinking: The problem. The Critical Thinking Community. Web.