ABBREVIATION USAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND IMPLICATION ON FORMAL WRITING SKILLS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CROSS RIVER STATE

This research work focused on abbreviation usage on social media and its implication on formal writingskillsof undergraduate students of the university of Cross River State. The aim of this study was toexamineifstudents use abbreviations, coinages and shortened forms of English words to communicate onsocial media platforms. To realize the objective of this study, three (3) research objectives and correspondingresearch questions were formulated to guide the study. The uses and gratification theory (UGT) developedby Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch in 1973 served as the theoretical framework adopted for thestudy.Relevant literatures were reviewed to support the researcher’s views. The population of thestudyconsisted of all students from the University of Cross River State. Using the formula for samplesizedetermination by Taro Yamane (1967), a sample of 200 respondents were selected as study participants.Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. Data collected from the questionnairewereanalyzed in tables and simple percentages. Results obtained from study findings indicated thatMassCommunication students use abbreviations, coinages and shortened forms of English wordstocommunicate on social media platforms on a frequent basis. It was therefore recommended amongstothers that educational institutions including the University of Cross River State should conduct seminarsand workshops focused on enhancing formal writing skills, emphasizing the importance of clear andcorrectlanguage in academic contexts to counteract the effects of informal written communication as evidencedin students’ usage of abbreviations while writing on social media platforms.