Introduction
Good morning everyone. Thank you for being here today. In this presentation, we will discuss the
literature themes and research type used in the study titled *“Social Media Usage Frequency and Its
Impact on Students’ Academic Writing Accuracy.
PART 1 – THEMES FOR LITERATURE
Overview of Literature Themes
To understand the connection between social media and academic writing, we reviewed previous
studies and identified five major literature themes. These themes help us understand what
researchers already know and what still needs more investigation. They also show why the
relationship between social media usage and writing accuracy is an important topic for today’s
students.
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Theme 1 – Students’ Social Media Usage Patterns
The first theme focuses on how often students use social media and why they use it.
Paul, Baker, and Cochran (2012) found that over 90% of university students use social networking
platforms daily. Many students check their accounts multiple times throughout the day, sometimes
for long periods.
Students use social media for a variety of purposes: entertainment, chatting with friends, academic
communication, sharing information, watching videos, and participating in online communities.
Because students spend so much time online, they are constantly exposed to a large amount of
informal language. This makes social media a powerful influence on how students read, think, and
eventually write.
Understanding these usage patterns helps us see why social media might affect writing accuracy.
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Theme 2 – Linguistic Features of Netspeak
The second theme focuses on netspeak—the informal language commonly used online.
Netspeak includes:
* abbreviations like “u,” “idk,” “btw,”
* informal spellings like “gonna,” “kinda,”
* emojis and symbols,
* missing punctuation and capitalization,
* very short and direct sentence structures.
Tahir and Hassan (2021) explain that netspeak is used because it is quick, easy, and efficient. Young
people prefer it because it helps them communicate faster.
The problem is that netspeak does not follow formal writing rules. When students use netspeak
every day, these habits may appear in their academic writing without them noticing. This can lead to
mistakes such as informal expressions, missing punctuation, or incorrect spelling.
This theme helps us understand why writing accuracy might be influenced by daily digital
communication.
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Theme 3 – Effects of Social Media on Writing Performance
The third theme looks at how social media use affects writing performance in general.
The findings from previous studies are mixed.
DeVito (2021) argues that constant digital communication makes students pay less attention to
grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, because social media is fast-paced and focused on quick
responses.
Students get used to writing without thinking about accuracy, and this habit can carry over into
academic writing tasks.
However, some researchers also argue that social media can increase motivation to write and expose
students to more English content.
Even though social media may help with writing fluency, it does not always support writing accuracy.
This is why studying accuracy is important—it shows whether students are writing correctly, not just
frequently.
This theme highlights the need to examine the negative and positive effects of social media on formal
writing.
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Theme 4 – Academic Writing Accuracy
The fourth theme focuses on academic writing accuracy.
The University of Cambridge (2015) defines writing accuracy as the correct use of grammar,
vocabulary, punctuation, and spelling.
Accuracy is an essential part of academic writing because it helps express ideas clearly and
professionally. Even small mistakes can cause confusion or weaken the quality of a written
assignment.
For English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, accuracy shows how well they understand and apply
language rules. Many students already find accuracy difficult, even without the influence of social
media.
Therefore, if social media habits are making accuracy problems worse, it is important for teachers and
learners to recognize this.
This theme explains why accuracy should be a main focus when studying the effects of social media
on writing.
Theme 5 – Relationship Between Online Language Exposure and Writing Accuracy**
The fifth theme looks directly at how online language exposure might affect accuracy in writing.
Asare et al. (2022) found that students who use social media more often are more likely to bring
informal language features into their academic writing. This includes informal spellings, missing
capitalization, slang expressions, and reduced attention to grammar.
This suggests that informal online habits can “transfer” into schoolwork, especially when students
switch quickly between chatting on their phones and doing academic assignments.
However, this relationship has not been fully studied, especially among Vietnamese EFL learners.
This gap is exactly what the current study aims to explore: whether more time spent on social media
is linked to lower academic writing accuracy.
PART 2 – RESEARCH TYPE AND METHODOLOGY
Research Type Overview
The study uses a correlational research design.
A correlational design is used to see whether two variables are related to each other. In this study, the
two variables are:
1. Social media usage frequency, and
2. Academic writing accuracy.
The researchers do not change or control anything. Instead, they measure how often students use
social media and compare that to their writing accuracy scores.
This design is appropriate because it helps identify patterns or connections between the two
variables without manipulating the students’ behavior.
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Participants**
The participants are second-year English-major students at Ton Duc Thang University.
Purposive sampling was used, meaning the researchers selected students who fit specific
requirements.
The participants must:
* be enrolled in academic writing courses, and
* use social media every day.
These two conditions ensure that the sample is relevant and that the students’ writing accuracy
could realistically be influenced by their social media usage.
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Instruments
Two instruments were used to collect data:
**1. Social Media Usage Questionnaire**
This questionnaire includes 10–15 statements on a Likert scale. It measures:
* how often students use social media,
* how many hours they spend daily,
* what platforms they use, and
* their purposes for using social media.
**2. Academic Writing Test**
Students complete a 150-word writing task.
Their writing is scored using an analytic rubric that evaluates:
* grammar accuracy,
* vocabulary use,
* punctuation,
* spelling.
This rubric provides a clear and objective way to measure accuracy.
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Data Collection and Analysis
The data collection takes place in two steps:
1. Students complete the questionnaire.
2. Students complete the writing test.
After collecting the data, the researchers use descriptive statistics to summarize the social media
usage patterns and the number of errors in the writing samples.
Then, they use Pearson correlation to determine whether there is a relationship between social media
usage frequency and writing accuracy.
This statistical method tells us whether the relationship is positive, negative, or not significant.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, the literature suggests that social media usage and netspeak can influence writing
accuracy, but current research is not completely clear.
This study aims to explore whether heavy social media use is associated with lower academic writing
accuracy among English-major students.
The findings may help teachers better understand how students’ everyday digital habits affect their
academic work. It may also help students become more aware of how social media influences the way
they write.
We hope that the results of this study will support better writing instruction and help students
improve both their language skills and their academic performance.