The Impact of Digital Technology on Student's Writing

Disclaimer :

This writing is only for fulfilling my assignment (To post any writing on social media), no other purposes. So this is not qualified for any references.

Most words are copied and pasted, and few are paraphrased. The sources of the writing are :

• https://hackernoon.com/positive-and-negative-effects-of-technology-on-academic-writing-skills-fw3430lq
• https://www.praguepost.com/education/decline-in-writing-skills-due-to-technology
• https://technologyforlearners.com/how-digital-technologies-can-help-you-overcome-writing-challenges/

Examples of digital writing tools are grammar checkers, citation generators, audio converters, editors, vocabulary boosters, and plagiarism checkers. Digital writing tools enhance students' writing skills through time-saving, increased creativity, collaboration, improved communication, easier training, faster revisions, enhanced focus, and deeper thoughtfulness. Students in non-English-speaking countries often find it challenging to write an assignment in the English language. However, these tools have helped students overcome writing challenges.

Research has shown that technology has both negative and positive effects on students' writing. The era of research where students used to go to the library, search for books, and gather newspapers and articles has passed as everything you are looking for is online. Technology has significantly transformed students’ academic writing skills to create both positive and negative impacts. However, the benefits appear to outweigh the obstacles as platforms like grammar checkers, citation generators, audio converters, and vocabulary boosters enhance writing skills among students. There is a little problem with over-dependence, plagiarism, and cyber slang that experts must revolutionize to ensure significant achievements from technological innovations. Conclusively, technology also immensely improves research skills in academic writing.

The Positive Impacts of Technology on Student's Writing

It has significantly improved students' written communication skills. There is an increased interaction over the internet platforms like Viber, Skype, and WhatsApp, where students communicate in written form.

It fosters collaboration: Every class has a student group where students come together to share ideas concerning certain issues. Also, every online writing platform has its interactive community on social media, where people go to share their ideas. This is possible through technology, now students have a platform where they can seek help concerning their writing projects or assignments and get people's opinions and views. Academic essays become more explanatory as students share diverse information that is vital to their writing skills. It is also possible to generate discussion forums where academic writers address the associated challenges through the acquisition of fluidity, empathy, and interpersonal communication skills.

It improves students' creativity: With access to lots of research materials online concerning a particular topic. Students are not limited and can carry out extensive research work on certain subject matters. The availability of online writing tools has also helped students in writing better. Tools that check for grammatical errors and spelling errors are used by students to easily correct and edit their written essays. Academic writers figure out new information on the internet and access other people's ideas on emerging topics. This opportunity inspires learners to innovate and work on personal projects as online platforms allow extensive sharing of information. It is easier to use paraphrasing tools and plagiarism checkers to inspire students to write more creative papers and achieve self-expression in their work.

It helps save time: The use of technology in writing has helped students save time by simplifying the overwhelming assignments in modern learning. Digital platforms like citation generators save students time in adopting writing formats and referencing styles like APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, or AGLC. The writing process becomes faster; hence, students can save some precious time to improve their writing skills and conduct meticulous research. Additionally, editing and proofreading solutions like Grammarly check textual documents, identify mistakes, and make corrections instantly to speed up revisions

It has improved students' writing grades: Technology also enhances performance as students become more attentive and thoughtful to information. The use of plagiarism checkers, grammar checkers, urban dictionaries, and citation generators has greatly helped to improve students' writing skills and produce better papers which means improved scores and grades. Students interact with better and more proficient writers who guide them in achieving better grades. Content creation enhances accuracy and appropriateness as students pay attention to details to improve their overall writing skills.

The Negative Impacts of Technology on Student's Writing

Plagiarism: Due to the easy access to a lot of written work and resources on the internet. It has made most students lazy and has brought about a decline in writing skills. Some students fail to write original and unique papers, they fail to use their words. Students feel all they need to do is to just copy-paste an already published work rather than using their own words. 

Impatience with the writing process: There are college essay writing services that can instantly give you a finished written work. People no longer see the need to do research, but their effort and try to use their own words in putting up a piece. There is an app and a website for everything (writing, proofreading, editing).

Overreliance on technology: Students become helpless without technology. They have developed more trust in digital tools than they trust in themselves. The use of writing aids and online writing services has made students not believe in themselves anymore. The laziness caused by technology is rampaging. Students have forgotten how to carry out basic tasks like proofreading their texts and checking their spelling and grammar. It now appears that without these tools and online writing services, students cannot present any good form of writing.

Students may lose creativity due to automation. Some platforms limit students to specific writing styles and may create failure in evaluating personal writing proficiency. Concentration may also decrease and shrink students’ attention span. Additionally, students focus on short forms as they struggle to write more concise and well-planned papers.

Cyber slang: Most digital tools and platforms limit students to text expression, and they may incorporate informal writing into formal settings. While social media chats have influenced formal writing, students now cannot differentiate between formal writing and the usual way of chatting with their friends online. They bring this informal writing into their papers that are supposed to be formal and it poses a problem because they are penalized and it affects their grades negatively.

Recommended Digital Writing Tools

The list below is recommended digital writing tools. All of them have their own pros and cons. If students want to get all the features provided, they have to pay and or subscribe. Some of the tools are all-in-one tools.

• Grammar checkers: Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, ProWritingAid
• Citation generators: Opendemia, Citation Machine, Cite This For Me
• Plagiarism checker: Check-Plagiarism, Duplichecker, Smallseotools
• Vocabulary boosters: Vocabulary.com, Magoosh Vocabulary Builder, A Word A Day Widget
• Translation tools: Oxford Dictionary online, Dictionary.com, Google Translate
• Collaboration tool: Google Docs, Ms. Office
• Copywriting: Copywritely, Word Counter, Words to Use

Happy writing!