I quite often have disagreements with people my age about their views on social media. About how they believe that it is proving to be the decline and fall of civilisation as we know it because nobody actually bothers to meet up in real life anymore and how damaging it is to our relationships.
I am therefore delighted to read Simon Kuper’s article in the Financial Times Weekend magazine today about how “social media has done wonders for writing” because I completely agree with him. According to Clare Wood, a developmental psychologist, texting has improved schoolchildren’s ability to read.
There are about 200 million blogs out there now (probably more) and the use of online social media rises every month and as a result writing is taking over speech as the most common form of interaction. Surely, this is a better way to look at the trend? Not that face to face contact has rapidly diminished (because it hasn’t) but that casual writing that reads like a conversation is on the rise thanks to blogs and Facebook posts. This is writing that might not be erudite or grammatically correct, but because it is unpolished and barely edited, it is noted and remembered. “Texts, blogs, emails and Facebook posts are infecting other kinds of writing and mostly for the good. they are making journalism, books and business communications more conversational” – and I for one think that’s a very good thing because it is allowing everyone to be a writer.
