Introduction
Widespread struggles of American children, young adults, and the elderly with written communication are an alarming trend. Fewer students can now compose essays with a proper flow of thought and no grammar, lexical, or punctuation errors. Simultaneously, an increasing number of office workers consider it appropriate to send business emails filled with slang terms or written in an informal voice. When exploring the causes of this concern, one should consider the effects of social networks, education system challenges, and generational differences. The purpose of this essay is to explore these factors and offer solutions to them.
Negative Effects of Social Media
It is hard to disagree that the increased use of and access to various social media platforms and the Internet in general have significantly affected people’s written communication skills. Thus, according to Speak (2021), the primary effect of this digital world is a necessity to keep one’s writings short, brief, and quick. In other words, character limitations introduced by some networks, such as Twitter, made users adapt to these rules. As a target audience of social media, adolescents created new slang words and abbreviations that allowed them to express their thoughts in short sentences. What is more, in many cases, deliberate grammatical errors, use of improper sentence structure, missed commas, all uppercase letters, and slang have become local ways to joke and make short posts emotionally colored (Speak, 2021). Consequently, these tendencies reduced the time users spent on typing, posting, and sending messages and became people’s new habit brought into real life. Therefore, it is now more challenging for children and young adults to
Shortcomings in the American Education System
The second group of reasons is related to numerous flaws and weaknesses identified in the U.S. education system. Firstly, not all previous policies aimed to improve national levels of literacy proved effective. For example, Strauss (2017) states that after the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act in 2002, less attention was paid to teaching students proper grammar and writing skills. As noticed in a 2015 study, “less than 10 percent of assignments required writing longer than a single paragraph, and nearly 20 percent of assignments required no writing at all” (Strauss, 2017, para. 12). Consequently, during the last decade, it was noticed that many children having writing tasks could only make lists, compete short responses, and create summaries, not being able to compose essays or reports. Further, it should also be stressed that many educators are ill-prepared to teach writing skills, and a shortage of dedicated and talented teachers contributes to the issue (Strauss, 2017). Eventually, it has always been challenging for children from low-income families or minority groups to access quality education, and now America faces the consequences of this problem it failed to address.
Differences in Generations
Next, fundamental differences in how representatives of older and younger generations develop, use technologies, and perceive the world also affect the reduced written communication skills. Thus, as mentioned above, adolescents and young adults have their own Internet culture, and they commonly prefer informal communication when emailing their teachers, grandparents, employers, and colleagues (Notre Dame of Maryland University, 2019). However, the older generation prefers formal communications, but as they struggle to use technology, some of them can make grammar or other mistakes when typing.
Ways to Improve Written Communication
One might agree that identifying specific issues is the first and main step to solving them. Overall, various methods can help improve Americans’ written communication skills. Firstly, according to Foorman (2020), federal and state authorities need to implement more effective policies and programs aimed at highlighting the importance of writing competencies. They should also address the problems of a shortage of teachers and low-income students’ reduced access to high-quality education (Foorman, 2020). Secondly, changes need to take place on organizational levels. For instance, companies need to promote proper business communication, taking into consideration the differences between generations. If they try to merge their employees’ preferences in written communication, the overall situation will enhance.
Eventually, some steps can be taken on individual levels, starting with parents improving their own skills and encouraging their children to pay more attention to writing properly. Educators, parents, and government have to help adolescents and young adults take responsibility for their own literacy (Crosby, 2020). People need to understand that social media posts, emails sent to their teachers, and physically written essays differ severely, so they might want to improve their skills in each of these areas.
Conclusion
To conclude, a number of various factors have a strong impact on the decreasing levels of written communication in the United States. Firstly, technology makes users get used to short, abbreviated, slang, and informal communication. Secondly, generational differences also affect how the youth and the elderly use their writing competencies. Lastly, specific challenges in the education system, such as adverse policies, shortage of teachers, and inequality in accessing quality schools, are the third group of causes. To improve the situation, the involvement of federal and state governments, companies’ leaderships, parents, and teachers are required.
References
Crosby, B. (2020). The Whiteboard Jungle: Writing skills continue to decline in schools. Los Angeles Times. Web.
Foorman, B. R. (2020). State policy levers for improving literacy [PDF document]. Web.
Notre Dame of Maryland University. (2019). The evolution of communication across generations. NDMU. Web.
Speak, C. (2021). Is there a decline in writing skills due to technology. Prague Post. Web.
Strauss, V. (2017). The real reasons so many young people can’t write well today — by an English teacher. The Washington Post. Web.