Internet style language

These days, we cannot live without the Internet; that means the Internet has become part of our cultures now. There are many good things about using the Internet; however, there are also bad things about using it for people, especially for high school students. Nowadays high school students use the Internet for playing games, chatting with friends and reading unnecessary articles. One of the articles said that “Their abilities to write clearly have deteriorated appreciably in the past four or five years” (2008, para. 35).

So, even though the Internet is useful, I disagree that high school students should use the Internet a lot, because it can cause serious problems. There might be some students who use the Internet in a good way, but some others might not. Using the Internet a lot brings some problem to high school students, so their parents should control it for their children.

First, high school students have lost their writing skills because of Internet style language. They usually use informal language such as slang, or they make words shortly. According to Weeks, “the things that suffer most are spelling and punctuation. They put a comma, not a period, where there is a pause” (2008, para. 36). Nobody thinks it is serious, but it is very serious because language is one part of the big culture. If we let them use language like this now, the academic language will slowly go away. As long as they are learning writing skill at school, there should be a time limit on using computer before they graduate.

Second, the online game is an issue recently, because some students play the online game most of their days. They just stay at home and play online games. This situation can bring them death or give them mental disorders. They usually skip classes; they stay alone and they do not talk with family much. It is common for game addicts. In Asia, many people have died because of game addiction. So parents should not let them do that if they really care about their children.

Finally, nowadays they use a lot of slang and they use shortcuts. I think there are a lot of websites, where I can read unnecessary articles. The articles are mostly stories about celebrities and pictures. As you know there are a lot of slang words and shortcuts. High school students can access that website easily online and most of them like celebrities’ stories. When they read those articles and they find some new word, they will try to use that word. Because of that reason, their writing skill is going bad. In Lee’s article, she says that “some teachers find the new writing style alarming”. “First of all, it’s very rude, and it’s very careless”(2008, paras. 37-38). It is getting more serious now, so the people who wrote the celebrity articles should not write articles which include slang and shortcuts.

In my opinion, the Internet is very useful for our lives, but it can cause serious problems for high school students. Nowadays nobody can live without computer, so let them use computer with a time limit. In addition, someone should teach them how to use Internet effectively. Writing skill is very important, but high school students do not realize that writing can show the writer’s personality.

Reference

Lee, J. (2002, September). Nu shortcuts in school R2 much $ teachers. NY Times. Retrieved on June 17, 2008, from http://tinyurl.com/5p7vtb

Weeks, L. (2008, June 15). The fate of the sentence: is the writing on the wall? Washington Post. Retrieved on June 17, 2008, from http://tinyurl.com/6bp4kz