The Influence of Social Media Applications on Learning English as a Second Language

This study aims to discover how the daily usage of social media platforms affects the users' second language learning. The study has been conducted in public high schools in Kuwait from different areas. A questionnaire has been distributed to the high school students to seek their opinions about social media usage and to test their language skills in English. The questionnaire was distributed on a random sample of 300 volunteering participants has been obtained through the online survey. An interview has been also conducted with high school English teachers to get sufficient information about the social media usage and its effect on their students. Four teachers were asked to provide random grades of their students to check how they are affected. Another questionnaire has been added to know whether the social media platforms usage during the Covid-19 Pandemic helps in the language skills. The approach that has been used to conclude our results is a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results have shown that the skills of the language can be improved by the usage of the social media platforms specially the listening, speaking, and reading skills. The writing skill, however have not shown any improvement after using the social media platforms. Therefore, social media applications can be a reliable tool for learning a second language but it has to be under the guidance and supervision of professional teachers.