By
James Titcomb
03:22 EST, 3 May 2012
|
05:27 EST, 3 May 2012
Texting and social networking are preventing children from learning correct English and are linked to ‘rough behaviour’, bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett has claimed.
He said kids appear ‘unmotivated in school’ and asked parents to encourage children to interact with each other.
Sir Terry, 64, who suffers from Alzheimers disease, said: ‘I think social media is not helping at all, and texting certainly isn’t.
Sir Terry Pratchett says social media and texting are damaging children’s ability to communicate
‘You have to have interaction with other people. When people text me stuff I just think “I’m not going to bother with that”.
‘Shakespeare went to a lot of trouble for our language, and now you’ve knocked away half the consonants.’
The fantasy novelist said that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter lead to children being unable to communicate properly, meaning they express themselves through bad or violent behaviour.
Concern: The author said a wide vocabulary helps children can express themselves at the Sky Arts Awards on Tuesday
‘If you have a wide vocabulary you can think different thoughts. It stops you getting frustrated,’ Sir Terry said at Tuesday’s South Bank Sky Arts Awards.
‘If you have the words to identify exactly what you mean, you can get your message across and I’m sure this is linked to rough behaviour.’
Educational psychologist Dr Kairen Cullen said that social media and texting can damage children’s ability to relate to each other.
She told The Evening Standard:’He is making some big claims, although there are counter-arguments too.
‘New media increases access for lots of children, but on the other hand it doesn’t give them the experience of face-to-face contact. We only get good at this with lots of practice.’
‘One of the biggest jobs schools have is to tackle the appropriate use of new media.’
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Most of the Facebook / Twitter types I’ve met come across as conceited attention seekers. False friends, phony self image, desperate to be included in something.
Real life must be a challenge for some of them. Because they ‘aint so good in reality.
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“social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter lead to children being unable to communicate properly, meaning they express themselves through bad or violent behaviour.”
Absolutely true. Even though I am also a member of these social networking media, I can certainly say that these make the human relationship simply virtual. It is easy to text and comment, but it has become very difficult to look at another fellow being’s face and speak/to convey the sorrow happiness etc. The thread of relationship which attach the human beings each other has become ‘soft’ from ‘hard’!
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Terry Pratchett books make me laugh out loud on the train.
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He’s just getting on a bit the old lad, all generations have their own slang.Why in his youth I’ll bet he called the English teacher Daddy-oh..
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“Jealous old pensioners whinging about the young agai”
What about those of us who are making such comments and we’re in our early 30s?! Never make a claim about someone until you know the facts. Fact is, it’s only been in the last 10 years or so that we read daily about teenagers kniving other teenagers to death!
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I’ts not just at school. You only have to watch the Jeremy Kyle Show to see that much of the problems on those who appear on the show have to do with what they post and read on Facebook etc.
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The poor little darlings are definitely frustrated and I think you are quite right. However they will never know wrong from right without pain. Fact.
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“Oh, and Discworld books are for nerds…. which perfectly describes Pratchett
– A. Wright-Burke, London Bridge”==============You sad, sad person.
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It isn’t texting or tweeting as such, or any other modern communication method that’s to blame. It’s rotten parents who abdicate responsibility for raising decent, well conducted children. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of texting, nor sending fast information with a tweet. What’s wrong is that children are allowed to do this in every spare moment. And for that, the parents are to blame.
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Jealous old pensioners whinging about the young again. It’s not 1945 anymore, things change, let go it’s over.
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