321,368,864 is the population of the United States. 74% of that population has internet access and is using some sort of social media. Given that there is about 300 million people here, there should be a ton of communication and interaction between all those people. Social media makes it easier to communicate between all those people but it is also changing how and what we say. I believe that social media is harming our ability of communication because there is proof through the interpretation of punctuation, grammar usage, essay writing skills, and protection from predators. All of these things have changed ever since social media has risen in usage, and it’s not a good change.
One of the reasons that social media is harming our communication is that it makes our grammar worse. In the article “Why can’t Johnny write? Don’t blame Social Media”, Lance Ulanoffmar says “People no longer know how to write. It is a society in which fewer and fewer people read. What they do write tends to be short messages in a sort of meta-language, with meta-spelling, on Twitter and Facebook.” He is saying directly that social media such as Twitter and Facebook are making our grammar worse by forcing us to shorten sentences and words in order to get the point across. Today’s generation is creating a somewhat different language because of all the new words and things they are creating from social media.

Another reason as to why social media is harming our means of communication is that it is changing our interpretation of punctuation, such as the period. In the article “The Period is pissed”, Ben Crair states, “The period was always the humblest of punctuation marks. Recently, however, it’s started getting angry. I’ve noticed in my text messages and online chats, where people use the period not simply to conclude a sentence, but to announce ‘I am not happy about the sentence I just concluded.’” This is showing that overtime punctuation has been the same but ever since social media has begun to get popular, the period has become a symbol of somewhat anger instead of just ending a sentence. Changing the affect of this just takes away from the real meaning of why the punctuation was created. Now a days you never know if somebody is angry at you or is just ending their sentence
Now there are some positive effects of social media. One of those effects being that you can communicate with friends and family who are across the country or even across the world. This is very true but it still isn’t the same thing as communicating face-to-face. You cannot see things like body language, or facial expression, or even what they are wearing. Social media is taking away our method of face-to-face contact by making it an option for people to communicate with one another without leaving their house. For this reason, it is also making people lazier. It makes people not want to get up and interact with other people because they can do it from their couch using a phone or computer.

Now given all of this information about the changes of social media, both good and bad, you can see that there is an overall negative effect on the world today. With almost everyone using some sort of social media, we are all susceptible to all the changes that come along with it such as change in punctuation marks and how they are interpreted, and that it makes us write in a different type of language that has way too many abbreviations and acronyms. These changes are permanently messing up the english language. Something has to be done in order to stop these changes from occurring more intensely.

References
“Why Can't Johnny Write? Don't Blame Social Media” Lance Ulanoffmar. Published March 4, 2013 on Mashable
“The Period Is Pissed” Ben Crair. Published November 25, 2013 in The New Republic