Evolution of Electronic Language

I have been ranting about cell phones for years. It's no secret that I think they are one of the bigger impediments to civil behavior and basic politeness. They seem to be taking over most other forms of communication too. It used to be that when we communicated electronically it was via E mail. Well, E mail as a personal correspondence is on it's last legs. What replaced E mail is instant messaging. IM is still popular but I see it is dying too and being replaced by texting on the phone. Ugh! There is a pattern here that isn't a positive one.

The evolution is E mail to IM to texting. Hmmmmm I see patterns that are continuous in that evolution. Take, precision, for example. At each stage of the personal electronic communication evolution there is a decline from precise communication and a movement toward more informal language. E mail itself was just was semi formal communication. (I miss old fashioned snail mail). The E mail writer did not have immediate feedback, as is so in the case of the other two.

Therefore, when sending an E mail it was important to use at least some complete sentences, grammatical and syntax or the reader might be confused or not understand what was said. For awhile, we wrote E mails as we wrote snail letters, with care and precision as a guideline. That has changed as electronic communication has become even less formal. Even E mails now are lacking structure.

When Instant messaging and all its annoying cutsie icon symbols and abbreviations (the creator of "lol" should be publicly flogged!) became popular as a substitute fro E mail, E mail became less precise and since has lost much of its appeal to users. I think the writing skills of people today are at an all time low level now, and I blame the informality of modern electronic mediums for some of that. Formal language has been smothered by informal language, even in cases where formal language use is the only that is needed.

Instant messaging has the advantage of being instantaneous communication, and it has much lower levels of skill as a requirement when using. A person can cover his or her poor language ability by constant restatement on IM and by using that annoying IM slang that everyone understands. If I were teaching English now I would assign my students the task of writing the same message in each of the three forms I have described here, or at least in how we most typically see the message written in each of them. It might show the student (at least the ones capable of understanding the distinction in styles of all three) that, though informal language is easier to use and "more fun", sometimes (when precise understanding is desired) it is far from being the better mode to use. Perhaps one student might even decide to communicate with less informality and with more precision. But then, I am a dreamer....

The third electronic communication that has evolved and now become most popular is texting. I find very little of use in that, but confess to have never texted myself and to having never owned a cell phone. Of that I am proud! I haven't drunk the poison. Texting is the equivalent of babbling because the majority of it is unintelligible and un necessary. Those who most like to text also most like to hear themselves talk. They are on auto pilot, texting but signifying nothing of importance (yes, tweeting).

It's sad to see the written language assaulted by these new lazy mediums of communication. Every tweet is another nail in the casket of communication......