by Cara Dack

Created on: February 15, 2009

Does the Internet harm spelling and grammar skills? My immediate reaction, and I imagine the reaction of many, would be to say yes.
One doesn't have to look far to see just how much spelling has deteriorated in the last few years.
Whether this is on one of the myriad Internet forums or even just looking at GCSE test papers, the simple truth is that kids these days just can't spell and don't even get me started on the more complicated aspects of grammar and punctuation.

In a world where information is power and time is money the onus is on getting the most amount of information transferred in the least amount of time. Letters became emails; emails become instant messages and as the time taken to send decreased so did the writing time. The Internet has caused our lives to speed up no end and time has become a precious commodity one that we don't want to waste by ensuring that we have spelled every word correctly and placed those commas properly.

But let's look at this issue more closely. Was it really the Internet that caused the breakdown of the English language? Let's face it, spelling and grammar didn't really start to deteriorate until the advent of text messaging. Suddenly it wasn't that we didn't have the time to write things properly, it was that we simply didn't have the space. When you have an important message to send and only 100 characters to do it in every character needs to be used to its full extent much as it was with the old telegram system. Vowels were dropped, for became 4 and phonetic spelling reared its ugly head. It was simply a matter of time before this new system of writing became the norm rather than the exception.

OK, maybe I am merely arguing semantics here; after all, the Internet and mobile phones can all be lumped into one big "modern technology" category. The fact remains that I am reluctant to place the entire blame at technology's door. The education systems still refuses to drum proper use of the English language into student's heads the way they used to. No longer is it necessary to spell correctly in examinations as long as the examiner can understand the basic gist. Surely this failing on the part of our schools has more impact than the use of mobile phones or instant messaging? If children were expected to write correctly while in school they are more likely to continue this practice in later life. The fault lies not in the initial mistakes, but in the fact that these mistakes are never corrected.

In summary I would say that no, the Internet cannot be blamed for the lax standards in spelling and grammar that we are currently witnessing. It can bear part of the blame certainly but I consider the bigger issue to be the falling standards of our education system. Perhaps when we see this issue addressed, then Internet forums will once more become legible for those of us not learned in "txt spk".

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