Color me old--though I get made fun of here at Social Technologies because I'm the youngest employee--but I was shocked to see this recent Pew Internet and American Life survey that shows Internet-speak is creeping into teens' school assignments.
The survey revealed that in school assignments:
- 64% of teens have used "informal" chat-style writing
- 50% of teens don't use proper capitalization and punctuation
- 38% use common Internet-speak abbreviations such as "LOL" and "OMG"
- 25% have used emoticons--yes, emoticons, those annoying symbols to denote mood :(
What?! In school assignments? These statistics do seem ridiculous. But, assuming they're relatively accurate, imagine what the future of writing, grammar, and communication will be. What scares me is that the majority of my generation seem to find it acceptable to write "formally" in this manner. Will correct spelling and grammar vanish, replaced by LOLCat speak?
I don't think so. Some experts are arguing that this kind of informal writing and speech will become part of the regular lexicon, just as other informal or incorrect writing styles have become accepted over time (e.g., "lots," which isn't a word, except when you're talking about parking lots or drawing lots, but that doesn't stop nearly every mainstream newspaper from using it). It seems more plausible that aspects of Internet-style writing will creep into formal contexts--for instance, using less capitalization.
idk, like, who knos? MayB it wont B 2 bad. LOL, j/k.
Image: Peter Clark (Flickr)
If you found this post useful, make sure to sign up for our RSS feed or subscribe by email.
Leave a comment