Author(s): Mounim Lakhal

Abstract: Social Media is part and parcel of our everyday lives. And since millennials have been interacting on social media on a constant basis, writing is one of the skills by means of which they interact. The intent of this paper is to measure students’ social media usage and explore the relationship between these technologies and writing ability among Moroccan university EFL students. In particular, this study employs the explanatory sequential mixed-methods design as a means of researching the reciprocity between social media use and its effects on the writing skill. The findings have indicated that Moroccan university students’ social media use habits exert significant impacts on the writing skill and that most of them are susceptible to potential risks pertaining to the use of social media. The reported findings gave sufficient proof that social media is a convenient tool to develop better writing skills. Hence, social media literacy should be integrated in the curriculum.

Keywords: Social media use, writing ability, academic writing skills, Moroccan university students.

Article Info: Received: 21 Feb 2021; Received in revised form: 29 Apr 2021; Accepted: 12 May 2021; Available online: 29 May 2021

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.63.21