INTRODUCTION
With the advancement of technology and the leap the world has taken, everybody faced a drastic change in everything and the most evident thing is this so- called “alternative literacy” that has taken place. Generations are now typing, texting and tweeting their own unique language. This word abbreviated Morse Code like grammar sweeps from computer to phone on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. “Written communication in instant messaging, text messaging, chat and other forms of electronic communication have generated a “new language” of abbreviations, acronyms, word combinations, and punctuation.” (Varnhagen et al., 2009, p. 1)
According to media sources participating on social networking sites and instant messaging is having a negative impact on the use of the English language. Most at risk according to these sources are our younger generations. It threatens youth literacy because it creates and compounds undesirable reading and writing habits and because it’s particular lowbrow vernacular damages students’ abilities to employ regular formal literary skills.” (Craig, 2003, p. 118)
This study aimed at determining whether networking sites has a positive or negative impact on young people’s English Language Literacy.

I. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
With even more technological advances and the growth of Social Networking sites, people are communicating more by Internet using different sites, and also via their mobile phones, which also have Internet access. With people now being able to do banking online, it could be said that letters will cease to exists, and then the same with text messaging, now that Instant Messaging is available on mobile telephones. Teenagers and young adults in recent years are normally constantly attached to their mobile phones and the internet.
This research study will determine whether the wide usage of the networking sites affects the people’s English language proficiency in a positive or a negative way and specifically sought answers to the following questions: 1. Are you fond of using social networking sites? 2. What kind of social networking sites you usually visit? 3. What are the contributions of social networking sites to your English Language proficiency? 4. Will you agree to this statement that “instant messaging offered by networking sites threatens youth literacy because it will lead them to using misspelled words“? 5. Do you think those networking sites have a positive impact on your English language proficiency?

II. BACKGROUND AND REVIEW TO RELATED LITERATURE
There is a new wave of communication sweeping across the world. Generations are now typing, texting and tweeting their own unique language. This word abbreviated Morse Code like grammar sweeps from computer to phone on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Since the early days of the internet and the world wide web, people have crowded to online communication channels, from email down the social media timeline through Usenet, IRC, Wikipedia, Friendster, My Space, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter … to the mobile communication technologies of today (idfive, 2006). Since its beginning in 2001 multitudes of people from all over the globe have swarmed to be part of the Wikipedia phenomenon, to experience the satisfaction of participating in something for the benefit everyone and to experience the gratification of seeing their contribution published instantly online. The popularity of Wikipedia has never been questioned. Initially Wikipedia’s content was compared favorably by some to that of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Giles, 2005), but murmurs currently circulating in the press and growing louder, are predicting Wikipedia, at least as it presents today, may be approaching the end of its lifecycle (Angwin & Fowler, 2009; Farrer, 2009; Frommer, 2009; Johnson, 2009; Subhasis, 2009). This paper argues that the quality of Wikipedia’s content has deteriorated over time and questions the authority, accuracy, reliability and completeness of Wikipedia content which is increasingly subjected to hoaxes, vandalism, political and corporate cleansing, self-promotion, and the abuse of power and the individual agendas of the site’s editors and administrators. The conclusions drawn counsel that Wikipedia should not be relied upon as a quality resource and warn that citing Wikipedia for serious academic scholarship is ill-advised.
Social Networking sites are defined as web-based services which allow users to create for themselves a public/semi-public or private profile within an enclosed system. They allow the user to create a list of other users with whom they share any type of connection. They can also allow the user to view and manage their list of connections, and those of others within the system (boyd, 2007).
Social Networking Sites started in around 1997 with Six Degrees. It was followed in around 1999 by sites such as LiveJournal and BlackPlanet. Then in 2003 there was a boom of new sites, such as MySpace, LinkedIn, Hi5, and followed in 2004 by Facebook (Harvard only) and Flickr. This boom of new sites continued through 2005 and 2006 in which Facebook grew to include high school networks and eventually to corporate networks. Other major sites, such as YouTube, Bebo, Twitter and Windows Live Spaces also launched and became incredibly popular. (boyd, 2007) With the launch of all of these SNS’s this would have been when people were starting to have more conversations online rather than face to face. Although face to face communications still would have been occurring, people would have been able to know more information on someone if they had met them over an SNS rather than if they had met them face to face due to all the information on the person that was available online, therefore changing how the users would converse online compared to if they had met in person. As this paper is concentrating on Facebook and MySpace, it is going to look at some of the statistics on how quickly the sites grew. Facebook founders, Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin launched Facebook from their dorm room at Harvard in early 2004. Within a month, it had expanded from Harvard to include Stanford, Columbia and Yale. By December 2004, Facebook had reached nearly 1 million active users. In September 2005, it expanded to add high school networks and the following month it also added international school networks. So by the time it was just under 2 years old, it had more than 5.5 million active users. From here, Facebook grew and grew, having more than 12 million active users by December 2006, and up to 20 million in April 2007 then over 50 million users in October 2007. In August 2008, it reached over 100 million active users and by January 2009 it was still growing with 150 million active users. In April 2009 it had 200 million active users, July it had 250 million users, September 300 million active users and December 350 million active users, taking us to its current total of over 400 million active users in February 2010. (Facebook Statistics, 2010)
Myspace has a similar growth, about 10 months before Facebook. It launched in January 2004, and by the following month, it had 1 million members. By November 2004, it had 5 million members. It grew slightly faster than Facebook, due to it being launched at the whole world at the same time, unlike Facebook’s step from Harvard, to other Colleges, High Schools and eventually Internationally. By July 2005, MySpace had 20 million users, and this grew along with the site including MySpace Music, MySpace Film and MySpace Records. By March 2007, MySpace had hit 100 million monthly unique users worldwide. (MySpace, 2010)
With Facebook having spent nearly its first year with selected Colleges in America, this allowed MySpace to make its place in the Social Networking market, with this being shown by its growth in just 11 months. Therefore, by the time Facebook was released to Schools outside of America, most international teenagers/young adults were using MySpace to socialise online with their friends.
In 2008, eROI (an email marketing company in Oregon, US) surveyed 283 high school and college students. They found that there were varying reasons students signed up for email addresses, and one-quarter of students got an email address for social-networking purpose. 81% however, got an email address for communicating with family, and 52% for communicating with friends. During their survey, eROI also found that 83% of college students were using Facebook and 65% were using MySpace. However, overall they said that there was a very minor increase in email usage since getting an initial email address, so it appeared that students had a real need for email when they first set up their address and it was not just for the purpose of setting up a social networking profile. From this we could take that before Facebook and MySpace, students were using their emails to communicate with their family, and some with their friends. This led to the start of the change in the way people were communicating.
From their survey, eROI also found that the preferred means of communication was still text message at 37% but that social networking IM and social networking email were starting to catch up with email at 15%, and social networking IM and social networking email at 11% and 37% respectively. Teenagers and young adults are now using mobile phones as their primary means of communication, mainly with the use of text messaging and the ease of access to SNS’s with mobile internet. With social networking IM and social networking email growing in popularity as a preferred means of communication, this is one way in which the change in communication can be shown in the teenagers and young adults.
Some Social Networking companies are now editing their mobile internet sites so it is easier for users to access them from their mobile phones. Facebook is a prime example of this. Reported by the BBC News in February 2010, “the world’s biggest social network has revealed details of a stripped-down, text-only version of its mobile site called Facebook Zero.” The article then goes on to say that the new site is to “omit data intensive applications like photos”. It also mentions that Facebook already offers a slimmed down version of the its site, called Facebook Lite, which is for people who have slow/poor internet connections and that it is aimed at users in the developing world.
In February 2010, there was a survey of 500 Americans adults over 18 years old conducted by Ruder Finn, an American public relations agency, which commented on how long Americans are spending on average on the mobile Internet. From this survey, it seems the main reason Americans use their mobile Internet is to pass time. 100% of the Americans surveyed said this was the main thing they did with their internet, 85% said it was to be entertained and 72% said it was for escape. For socialising reasons, 98% use mobile internet to connect, 88% said to share, 96% to discuss and 81% said to be a part of a community. Within the 98% of those users who use the mobile internet to connect, 55% used it to send an instant message to family or friends, 60% used it to connect to family/friends, 62% used it to send/receive instant messages and 34% used it to chat using a social networking site.
This shows that the 60% of people who were using the mobile internet to connect to family and friends have changed the way they communicate with these people, especially along with the 34% who use is specifically to chat using a SNS. This shows that currently people have changed the way they communicate. People are still conversing face to face, but there is still this rise in the change of communication methods.
Skype conducted a survey in 2008 in which it is seen that email is now the “new snail mail”. In this survey that was conducted by Harris Interactive, Skype surveyed 3,091 American online adults which confirmed that many people, especially the young adults are opting to use other forms of communication including instant messaging, social networks and audio and visual calling using programs like Skype. 59% of the people surveyed said that they prefer the newer communication options to email due to the immediacy of the new options. This may be due to the 52% of people that said there was more interchange as it is like having a live conversation because you can communicate spontaneously. 42% of people surveyed said that they find alternative methods more convenient to communicate with people as they can also see if they person is free before they call or send a message. Although I have focused my paper on teenagers/young adults, 13% of the online adults said they have replaced all or some of their business email communications since they started using social networking sites etc. (Skype, 2008) It is likely that this will continue to grow in business. Some companies already have Skype access, through using Skype Business, such as Maxim Integrated Products. (Skype, 2010)
Skype is already having a break through with Social Networking, so not only can you use your mobile phone to Skype friends and access Facebook, but with a new Facebook application, you can now see which of your Facebook friend are using Skype. You can then add them to Skype, and with a browser add-on, you can also see which of your Facebook friends that you have on Skype are online via a small Skype symbol next to their name in the news feeds. From this information you could go on to look at what will come next with SNS’s and audio and visual calling merging. It could become likely that SNS’s will join programs like Skype to ensure that people do not lose their original face to face conversations so that all communication will not become text-based.

III. PROCEDURE

A. PARTICIPANTS OR SUBJECT IN THE STUDY
The respondents of the research study are all 2nd year college students of a particular school. There were 50 respondents and most of them belonged to 16- 27 age bracket.

B. INSTRUMENTS AND THEIR DESCRIPTION
The researcher used a self- made questionnaires as the main tool in gathering data. The questions were based on the readings made by the researchers on books, periodicals, journals on English and some unpublished researches.

C. GATHERING METHOD OF DATA
The researchers arranged for the personal administration of the questionnaire to the identified samples of the study and likewise conducted informal interview as the method of gathering data to verify the authenticity of their responses and to gather further information which could not be ascertained through the use of the questionnaires alone.

D. TREATMENT OF DATA/ STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
After the questionnaires were distributed and collected, the responses were tallied, tabulated, collected and statistically treated using the following formulas:
Percentage was used to determine, analyze and interpret the responses of the respondents.
P= f/n * 100
Where:
P = is the percentage f = is the frequency n = is the total number of respondents
100 = is the constant number cases
To determine the ages of the respondents, the following formulas were used:
R= H- L Where:
R = is the range
H = is the highest value in the distribution
L = is the lowest value in the distribution

k= 1+3.3log n
Where:
k = is the number of classes n = is the sample size and C= R/k
Where:
C = is the class interval
RESPONDENT’S RESPONSE TO THE SURVEY QUESTIONS
TABLE 1 QUESTION # 1 | choices | frequency | % | YES | 23 | 46 | NO | 3 | 6 | SLIGHTLY | 24 | 48 | As shown in table 1, 46% of the respondents said that they are fond of using networking sites, 6 % are not users and 48% said that they slightly use networking sites.
TABLE 2 QUESTION # 2 | networking sites | frequency | % | FACEBOOK | 46 | 92 | TWITTER | 6 | 12 | MYSPACE | 3 | 6 | FRIENDSTER | 1 | 2 | YAHOO | 37 | 74 | FILIPINOHEARTS.COM | 0 | 0 | FILIPINOCUPID.COM | 2 | 4 | GOOGLE | 37 | 74 | OTHERS (YOUTUBE) | 5 | 10 |
Majority of the respondents are using Facebook, seconded by Yahoo and Google as evident on the table above that 92 % are using the latter while the second one are 74 %.
TABLE 3 QUESTION # 3 | contributions of networking sites | frequency | % | ENHANCE SPEAKING SKILLS | 33 | 66 | ADDS NEW VOCABULARY | 30 | 60 | GETTING NEW INFORMATION | 15 | 30 | NOTHING | 1 | 2 | IT WORSEN MY ENGLISH | 0 | 0 |

Table 3 reveals that 66 % of the respondents believed that social networking sites have contributed something in enhancing their speaking skills and 60 % infer that the latter adds new words to their vocabulary and 30 % said that it gives them new information.
TABLE 4 QUESTION # 4 | choices | frequency | % | YES | 23 | 46 | NO | 11 | 22 | SLIGHTLY | 15 | 30 |

As reflected in Table 4, 46 % of the respondents agree that instant messaging offered by networking sites threatens youth literacy because it will lead them to using misspelled words and 30 % said that it’s slightly true and 22% affirmed that it has nothing to do with youth literacy.
TABLE 5 QUESTION # 5 | choices | frequency | % | YES | 32 | 64 | NO | 2 | 4 | SLIGHTLY | 16 | 32 |
As displayed on Table 5, there were 32 or 64 % of the respondents affirmed that networking sites have a positive impact on their English Language proficiency while 32 % said that it has a slight positive impact on them and only 4 % said that it doesn’t have a positive impact.

AGES OF 50 RESPONDENTS
FIGURE 1 Figure 1 shows the ages of the 50 respondents interviewed by the researcher in which ages 18- 19 is the highest population as seen in the frequency, seconded by 20- 21 and 16- 17 respectively.
COMPUTATIONS FOR FIGURE 1 Age | Frequency | %f | 16 | 1 | 2 | 17 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 8 | 16 | 19 | 7 | 14 | 20 | 7 | 14 | 21 | 7 | 14 | 22 | 4 | 8 | 23 | 1 | 2 | 24 | 4 | 8 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 2 | 4 | 27 | 3 | 6 | | n=50 | | Range=Highest Value- Lowest Value | = | 27-16 | | | | R= | 11 | | | | | | | | | | K= | 1+ 3.3 logn | | | | = | 1 3.3 log50 | | | | = | 6.6 or 7 | | | | | | | | | | c= | R | | | | | | K | | | | | | | | | | | = | 11 | | | | | | 7 | | | | | | | | | | | c= | 1.57 | | | | |

%f= | f | X100 | | n | |

IV. DISCUSION OF THE RESULTS
Based on the data gathered and treated statistically, the following findings evolved: * the ages of the 50 respondents interviewed by the researchers ranges from 16 to 27 in which ages 18- 19 is the highest population as seen in the frequency, seconded by 20- 21 and 16- 17 respectively. * * 46% of the respondents are fond of using networking sites, 6 % are not users and 48% said that they slightly use networking sites. * majority of the respondents are using Facebook, seconded by Yahoo and Google as evident on the table above that 92 % are using the latter while the second one are 74 %. * 66 % of the respondents believed that social networking sites have contributed something in enhancing their speaking skills and 60 % infer that the latter adds new words to their vocabulary and 30 % said that it gives them new information. * 46 % of the respondents agree that instant messaging offered by networking sites threatens youth literacy because it will lead them to using misspelled words and 30 % said that it’s slightly true and 22% affirmed that it has nothing to do with youth literacy because according to them it depends on the user. * there were 32 or 64 % of the respondents affirmed that networking sites have a positive impact on their English Language proficiency while 32 % said that it has a slight positive impact on them and only 4 % said that it doesn’t have a positive impact.

V. CONCLUSION
Based on the findings, it is safe to conclude that the social networking sites have a positive impact to the student’s English Language proficiency. If students employ their instant messaging literacy in the wrong settings, it is because their other scholarly literacy has not been attended to well enough. It is not, however because IM has damaged their literary abilities or prevented the formation of these abilities. As the popularity of social networking sites grows, it is inevitable that this new instant messaging language will merge into all facets of daily lives and not just be confined to the online or digital world.

VI. RECOMMENDATION
The following are the recommendations based on the findings of the study: 1. Since those networking sites are using English Language as the medium of communication, users should be responsible and keen enough about their English literacy. 2. Users should be observant to corrections provided by the sites since it has a built- in dictionary which will put a red line to a misspelled word and a green line to grammatically wrong sentence. 3. We should however be vigilant and always endeavor to teach to our children or siblings the highest form of English. If we do not, and let this standard slip, then a schism would appear between what the youth speak and what older generations speak leading to all sorts of problems.

VII. SUMMARY
The uses of text messaging using the medium of communication between younger generations have change the way (we) they communicate. Nowadays the art of conversation using the proper way of writing has died due to the new technology (mobile phones) and social networking sites such as Facebook twitter etc. 140 characters is not that much to write a long updates between peers. But, new lingo or “short cut” or “skipping” messages can also trigger bad indications of losing the proper way of written communications when it comes to literacy developments although thoughts and understanding matters most.
Once we understand short cut messages... It’s absolutely fine. The main part of everything is how can we possibly relate these from older generations – Using the proper way of English plus the short cut messaging- how can both generations will understand each other.
Gone are the days when we have to write the proper norm of real English and nowadays the evolution of text messaging triggers new lingo associates the vastness and richness of English or I May say the expansion of English language has emerged. It looks like the history of English language changed over the centuries. At the same time society has changed.
Technology, especially chat, requires people to understand the communication loop much better and become more concise in expressing themselves so that their message arrives as intended. And if there are misunderstandings, people then need to be able to rephrase and deliver the message again so it is understood properly. With this, effective communication skills are being taught more to the younger generation these days possible as a result of chat.

REFERENCES
Boase, J. (2008). Personal networks and the personal communication system. Information, Communication & Society, 11(4). Retrieved 1st April 2010, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691180801999001 database.
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1). Retrieved 22nd April 2010, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html database.
Castaneda, E. (2007). Texting shaping today’s language. Retrieved 18th March. 2010, from http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/jul/06/texting_shaping_todays_language/
Craig, D. (2003). Instant Messaging: The Language of Youth Literacy. In The Boothe Prize Essays [Essay]. pp. 116 – 133).
Donath, J., & Boyd, D. (2004). Public Displays of Connection. BT Technology Journal, 22(4), 71-82. http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/socialnetdisplay.draft.pdf database.Draft.
Haven, C. (n.d.). Haven’s Complete Manual of Practical Phonography: Chest of Books. Retrieved 2nd April. 2010, from http://chestofbooks.com/languages/shorthand/complete-manual

QUESTIONNAIRE
Dear Respondents,
This research study will determine whether the wide usage of the networking sites affects the people’s English language proficiency in a positive or a negative. Please answer the following questions heartily and honestly. Rest assured that the information given is purely used for academic purposes only.
Thank you.
Name: ________________________________ Age: _____________________
Address: ___________________________________________________________

1. Are you fond of using social networking sites? * Yes * No * Slightly 2. What kind of social networking sites you usually visit? * Facebook * Twitter * Myspace * Friendster * Yahoo * Filipinohearts.com * Filipinocupid.com * Google * Others please specify_____________________________ 3. What are the contributions of social networking sites to your English Language proficiency? * Enhance speaking skills * Adds new vocabulary * Gets new information from shout outs * Nothing * It worsen my English 4. Will you agree to this statement that “instant messaging offered by networking sites threatens youth literacy because it will lead them to using misspelled words”? * Yes * No * Slightly 5. Do you think those networking sites have a positive impact on your English language proficiency? * Yes * No * Slightly