Investigating the influence of texting trough social media on EFL learners' grammar skills

Abstract

The number of social media and internet users has been increased in the last years among learners; they use social media for different aims and one of these aims is texting.This study aims at exploring the impact of texting through social media on grammar among EFL learners and the extent to which text messaging affects EFL learners‘ grammar skills ,whether it affects their grammar skills positively or negatively, the investigation was conducted among the first and second year LMD master students of English department at Bejaia university, in total of around 250 students, 22 agreed to participate in this study, the research was conducted within the spring semester 2021_2022, it was based on the use of the descriptive research where data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively through an online based questionnaire use which consists of both closed-ended items and open-ended items, that was administered to the participants EFL learners of master 1 and master 2, the study focused on learners’ texting through social media and also on grammar, the descriptive statistical method was used to analyze the questionnaire. The research findings indicate that most of the participants according to their answers to the questionnaire are influenced by texting habits, and it does affect their academic English.