THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ABBREVIATION ON FORMAL WRITING SKILLS IN GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOL SHEKA, KUMBOTSO LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Social media can be used to accommodate both the social and educational aspects. They can be tools for supporting teaching/learning on one hand and a means of socializing on the other. This study therefore examines the impact of social media abbreviation on formal writing skills in Government Secondary Sheka, Kumbotso Local Government, Kano State. And the specific objectives of the study are to find out whether social media abbreviation influence students writing skills. To ascertain the effect of social media on students’ writing skills and to suggest possible solutions on how to avoid transferring abbreviations used in social media to classroom writing. The following research questions were formulated: Does social media abbreviation influence students writing skill? What are the effects of social media on students writing skill? And What are the possible solutions on how can students avoid transferring abbreviations used in social media to classroom writing? The population of the study is 1,698 while the sample size is 613. This data were collected is duly authenticated. This study concludes that students adopt different trends of writing on social media platforms and these trends are clear departure from the conventional spelling in English language. This was collected through the use of questionnaires by the respondents from Area of the study. A research is said to be descriptive if the purpose is to report situation as it is on the ground. This research work concludes that the use of social media abbreviation has both negative and positive impacts on the formal writings skills of students. The study found that That student stand the risk of becoming lazy in writing as social media encourages abbreviation of words and sentences. That Social media enhance or damage student’s academic attainment like proficiency in writing. The researcher however, recommends that, Students should be encouraged and reminded to stick to using the standard variety of abbreviation in formal writings. The government should consider the possibility of evolving a policy on teenagers’ exposure to social media. Teachers should advise students to reduce their use of abbreviated and wrongly spelled words adopted from social media and give careful consideration to proper writing skills.