The Impact of Social Media on Students’ Academic Writing in the Department of English at Tlemcen University

Abstract

Within the globalization, new trends of using social media or social networking sites have been recently highlighted. Social media influence peoples‟ lives in many aspects including education and English language learning. The Algerian society is not an exception since, Facebook among other social media is more and more used, especially in the daily interactions of students among them students of foreign languages of Tlemcen. The present dissertation aims at studying the phenomenon of texting and its negative impact on students‟ academic writing. The researchers hypothesized that the reasons that lead students to use the form of texting in writing are the lack of concentration, forgetting the form of some words, and unconsciousness. To valid these hypotheses, 40 questionnaires were given to 20 males and 20 females of Master1 and LMD1 English students. Additionally, English students‟ exam papers of LMD1 and Master1were observed. The results obtained were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, and revealed that most students view that texting impact their writing according to some major reasons which are gaining time, forgetting the form of the words, using it unconsciously, and simplicity.