Reynolds Bush And Geist

Isaacs

1

Jill E. Isaacs ENG 600 Dr. Kent-Drury 14 December 2008 More Than TXT: How the Internet Is Changing Communication and Language The technological innovations of the current digital age have changed modern society in countless ways, but their effect on modern communication and language are not fully understood. Critics are skeptical that “digital literacy” will lead to positive language changes and linguists have only started to examine how the use of technology is changing our language. Members of Generation Y (born 1979-1995) and those following have grown up immersed in technological advancements and use these tools to communicate in a way not even imagined by their predecessors. Despite fears of language degradation, this generation of texting aficionados may actually be helping the English language as we know it by opening up the playing field and inviting more than just the elite to join the online conversation. The changes brought on by digital literacy are taking place at a personal level as well as in the classroom and the workplace. The digital age is affecting how all people, especially children, read, communicate, and understand. Texting, a form of communicating through written messages via cell phones, has become entrenched in popular culture and was the premise of one of 2007’s most recognized commercials. It portrays a conversation between mother and daughter and it illustrates the conversation in texting terms, accompanied by subtitles for those who have yet to decipher this new language:

Isaacs

2

Mother: Beth Anne! Daughter: WU? [What's up?] Mother: Your cell phone bill is what's up. All this texting. Daughter: OMG, INBD. [Oh my gosh, it's no big deal.] Mother: It is a big deal. Who are you texting 50 times a day? Daughter: IDK, my BFF Jill. [I don't know, my best friend forever Jill.] Mother: Tell your BFF Jill that I'm taking away your phone. Daughter: TISNF! [That is so not fair!] Mother: Me paying this bill, that's what's S… N... F. Voice-over: Now too much texting is NBD. Cingular brings you unlimited texting. Just five dollars more a month. As the Cingular commercial demonstrates, the written “text” is moving off screens and into conversations. Language is constantly evolving. However, what is accepted as “proper” language and what is used by individuals on a more casual basis seems to differ greatly. Experts today are questioning the way people write online and how children especially negotiate reading and writing in the context of digital literacy. Usage of colloquial terms compared to “proper” language may be comparable to language differences in many preceding centuries, but the evidence of this difference is clearer than ever. One needs only to explore any of the thousands of personal blogs, emails or text messages to prove it. Texting expressions such as “OMG” and “BFF” have entered the lexicon and may become as common as “FYI” and “ASAP.” A new Web site, called Webopedia provides a “cheat sheet” for text messaging abbreviations. On its homepage it explains its significance by stating:

Isaacs

3

With the popularity and rise in real-time text-based communications, such as instant messaging, e-mail, Internet and online gaming services, chat rooms, discussion boards and mobile phone text messaging (SMS), came the emergence of a new language tailored to the immediacy and compactness of these new communication media. (Webopedia) This Web site or the need for such a “service” reflects the fact that there is a movement away from standard language in the digital realm. Texting and emails are not just for personal pursuits, and the merging of generations in the workplace illustrate this. Professionals are starting to pay attention to multiple generations, how they work together, and their differing needs and wants. The tech-savvy younger generations are rewriting the rules of communications. Their technological entrenchment influences the way they work and understand. In the article “The Gen Y Imperative” authors Leah Reynolds, Elizabeth Campbell Bush and Ryan Geist question how to communicate to “the youngest members of the workforce” and reference the global study taken by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). They assert: “Engaging this young workforce requires far more than a change in communication mechanisms. Rather, it requires a fundamental shift in how companies think strategically about communication with all generations, in terms of style, content, context, attitude, tactics, speed and frequency” (20). In the section of the article called “Generation Y: In their own words,” they quote interviewed survey participants like Lesley in Canada who says: “Word of mouth is not exactly word of mouth anymore. It happens now via cell phone, texting and forwarding e-mails. It is a different way of spreading the message – and has significant implications on the speed of messaging.” Kimberley in Jamaica says: “Gen Yers want to be communicated with daily! All

Isaacs

4

generations want to have a constant flow of information, but Generation Y expect it” (19). Reynolds, Bush and Geist conclude their article with these thoughts: Engaging Generation Y is the current challenge, but more imperative is the ability to adapt to a flattening and increasingly connected world. The pace of change will continue to influence generational work expectations and, in turn, how we must respond in order to successfully inform and connect diverse workforces. The risks are high for those who rely on traditional forms of communication to engage employees. (22) Outside the workforce, in the home and classroom, the affects of digital literacy on children are not yet fully known. In Jackie March’s Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood, she asserts that “early childhood literacy is in transition” partly due to digital technologies (237-238). She says: “There is much yet to be learnt about how children encode, decode and make meaning using a wider range of communication (238). She refers to Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer as well as Paulo Freire as literary theorists whose concepts are useful in analyzing how children are processing via technology. She states: Discourse is challenged by authors who explore the ways in which young children’s communicative practices are embedded in a wide range of technologies. Digital literacy practices share some of the features of more traditional literacy practices, but there are distinct aspects of text analysis and production using new media. (5) In 2006, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation took on digital literacy for adults in a program entitled “How the Web Is Changing Language.” Narrator Neal Conan said, “The online world of linguistics is fast, funny, and bears no resemblance to hours spent in a classroom prying

Isaacs

5

adjectives and nouns from a sentence.” The segment invited three guests, described as “linguists and wordsmiths” to talk about “new words, new blogs and new usage.” Exploring “Dictionary Darwinism,” they debated the new “language of netspeak.” Conan said that modern language is less like diagramming a sentence in classrooms and “closer to dodge ball.” Guest Grant Barrett, editor of the new Official Dictionary of Unofficial English, said that the Internet allows us to “eavesdrop on the way people talk and speak” and he has found that people are increasingly writing the way we speak. If dodge ball is the game, best-selling author Lynn Truss may be one of the opponents trying to strike out those who aren’t following the rules. In her popular book from 2004, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Truss gives would-be-grammarians reason to cheer as they stand up against inappropriate punctuation. She says: In the 1970s, no educationist would have predicted the explosion in universal written communication caused by the personal computer, the Internet and the keypad of the mobile phone. But now, look what’s happened: everyone’s a writer!…

Isn’t this sad? People who have been taught nothing about their own language are (contrary to educational expectations) spending all their leisure hours attempting to string sentences together for the edification of others. And there is no editing on the Internet! Meanwhile, in the world of text messages, ignorance of grammar and punctuation obviously doesn’t affect a person’s ability to communicate messages such as “C U later.” (Truss) While I agree that there is a place for “punctuation vigilantes,” I don’t see the communication changes as an end to English as we know it. In July - August 2008, The New

Isaacs

6

York Times took on “The Future of Reading” in a series of articles that examined literacy in the context of the current state of technology. The article “Literacy Debate Online: R U Really Reading” questioned and elaborated on the generational differences when reading books, receiving correspondence and viewing news. These articles gave anecdotal snapshots of how literature has changed. Referring to organizations like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association, they analyze the “new kind of reading” that has been created on the Internet. Author Motoko Rich says: Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends. (Rich) The article does not specifically tackle the implications on language, nor does take a position on the Internet’s impact. Instead, it presents facts and data from reports and covers both sides of the debate. Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale is quoted as saying, “Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without a doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode.” But Rich also includes the point of view from the other side when she says, “Web proponents believe that strong readers on the Web may eventually surpass those who rely on books. Reading five Web sites, an op ed article and a blog post or two, experts say, can be more enriching than reading one book.” These changes will even affect those who do not have access to the Internet— those on the other side of what is known as the “Digital Divide.” Evidence of this divide can be seen throughout North America and across the globe. However, for the purpose of this examination,

Isaacs

7

consider the influence as a Western phenomenon. In Moving Beyond Academic Discourse, Christian Weisser describes the “public sphere” as “an area of deliberative conflict where democratic values and ideals of social justice are upheld” (60). Weisser also presents the concept of “cyberdemocracy.” He references Jurgen Habermas’ criteria and asks: “To what degree does the Internet disregard the status of participants?” He broaches the Digital Divide when he states: “access to technology is often limited to the same types of people that had access to public spheres in earlier ages: wealthy white men.” Weisser says that the new “property” owner is one with a computer instead of a “house” (50). However, the need to close the Digital Divide has been recognized and is narrowing, albeit slowly. Even those without access have been influenced by the cultural changes reflected in the mainstream culture. The Internet is continuing on a path of explosive growth with a large number of women and diverse races gaining access, and also a voice. If texting itself has changed the way we communicate, there are other new and different outlets that may encourage similar changes, in addition to providing additional outlets for communications. Twitter, an interactive social media utility and one of the Internet’s fastest growing Web sites, provides a free and easy way to communicate with “followers.” The real-time “social messaging” site poses the question, “What are you doing?” and prompts you to answer in an entry limited to 140 characters. In September 2008, the service had over 5 million hits. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who integrated the Internet, especially social media components into his successful bid for presidency, has over 135,000 Twitter followers. But the utility is growing in popularity with more and more mainstream participants around the globe. Many have found it to be a useful communication tool and its very design has changed the way users communicate. Gregory Korte, a reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer, included advice as one of

Isaacs

8

his “tweets”: “Every journalist should learn to Twitter. It forces you to write short. You think 140 lines is constricting? 140 words? Try 140 characters.” It is yet to be determined if social networking Web sites, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and countless others creating the type of open discourse needed to create a positive online conversation. Some are quite skeptical. In the article in The Atlantic called “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr questions the true implications in our world where relying on the “Google” search engine has become commonplace. He says: Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. (Carr) Carr documents the changes that have occurred after other changes to humanity: the invention of the printing press, the common usage of typewriters, and even the common viewing of television. He calls himself a “worrywart” but encourages readers to be “skeptical” of his “skepticism.” Carr almost enacts a warning when as he concludes: Perhaps those who dismiss critics of the Internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom. Then again, the Net isn’t the alphabet, and although it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different. The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds.

Isaacs

9

In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. (Carr) While Carr focused on the implications of the digital age on thought itself, it is important to also consider the state of language and how it is influenced by popular culture. According to the British Library Board’s Web site: The English language is a vast flea market of words, handed down, borrowed or created over more than 2000 years. And it is still expanding, changing and trading. Our language is not purely English at all – it is a ragbag of diverse words that have come… from all around the world. Words enter the language in all sorts of ways: with invaders, migrants, tradesmen; in stories, artworks, technologies and scientific concepts; with those who hold power, and those who try to overthrow the powerful. (British Library Board) In The Mother Tongue: English & How it Got That Way, Bill Bryson takes readers on a meandering journey through the evolution of the English language. Although written for a general audience and filled with humorous anecdotes, there is solid scholarship and history to support his writing. He says: One of the undoubted virtues of English is that it is a fluid and democratic language in which meanings shift and change in response to the pressures of common usage rather than the dictates of committees. It is a natural process that has been going on for centuries. To interfere with that process is arguably both arrogant and futile, since clearly the weight of usage will push new meanings into

Isaacs 10 currency no matter how many authorities hurl themselves into the path of change. (145) Although published in 1990, when the Internet was in its infancy, his discussion around the language debate still applies to today. Bryson takes an authoritative stance around what language is and how the changes should not be taken lightly. However, he concludes by stating: But perhaps the most important question facing English is… whether it will remain one generally cohesive tongue or whether it will dissolve into a collection of related but mutually incomprehensible sublanguages…. Movies, television, books, magazines, record albums, business contracts, tourism – all these are powerfully binding influences....

All of these bring into people’s homes in one evening a variety of vocabulary, accents, and other linguistic influences that they would have been unlikely to experience in a single lifetime just two generations ago. If we should be worrying about anything to do with the future of English, it should be not that the various strands will drift apart but that they will grow indistinguishable. And what a sad, sad loss that would be. (245) Digital literacy is presenting an opportunity to consider text in a way that has never been examined before. The technological advancements and the way that they have affected different generations may lead to a change in our understanding of language and communication. If previous generations helped define modern literary theory as we know it, there may be changes in store when the next generation picks up the literary cloak. However, as long as these changes are studied and understood, the way language and communication are being transformed by

Isaacs 11 digital literacy should not be seen as a threat to more traditional studies. Instead the changes should be embraced and understood as a way to acknowledge the changes brought about with the technological advancements.

Isaacs 12 Works Cited Bryson, Bill. Mother Tongue: English & How it Got That Way. New York: William Morrow and Company Inc., 1990. Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” July/August 2008. The Atlantic. 12 December 2008. . Cingular. Advertisement. 2007. Splendad.com. 22 November 2008. . “How the Web Is Changing Language.” Narr. Neal Conan. Talk of the Nation. 28 June 2006. Natl. Public Radio. 22 November 2008 . Korte, Gregory. 1:19 p.m., 24 Sept. 2008. Twitter. 22 November 2008. “Learning Changing Language.” The British Library Board. 22 November 2008. . Marsh, Jackie, Ed. Popular Culture, New Media and Digital Literacy in Early Childhood. London: Routledge, 2005. Truss, Lynn. Eats, Shoots & Leaves. New York: Gotham, 2004. . “Twitter.” Wikipedia. 21 November 2008. Wikimedia Foundation. 22 November 2008. . Webopedia. 31 October 2008. 22 November 2008. . Weisser, Christian R. Moving Beyond Academic Discourse. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois UP, 2002.