language is chnging Thnx 2 [sic] social media and internet.

Ever heard of convenience? There shouldn’t be any difficulty assuming it to be of the prime importance. Surely people would disagree but with most of them it’s true and they know it!

Picture a boy’s room in his late teens. You’ll find books spilling out from under the bed and from the other side of the bed too. It’s because the way he reads while sleeping. Pulls the book out from the underneath and lets them lie there till the time he wants to read them again. You’ll see things haywire, scattered, and most of them lying beneath the dirty laundry, which not to mention is all over the place. Whatsoever the case, things have been like that since ages, be it teenage or old-age.

We thrive on convenience.                                                

We want things easy and manifested. Hard work? No thanks. Thinking? Thank you very much but no thanks again. Writing? ‘Dude what are you? A grandpa? I’ve got my tablet to type on!’ We work for our convenience, elders would deny that, but they too do it without even realizing it. It’s a sub-conscious human tendency.  And with time the convenience craving has engulfed so many things we can hardly imagine.

Come to think of the language and it strikes me how profound our tendency towards choosing convenient typing has ruffled the way we write. You surely are aware of the statistics regarding our exposure to the media. You even know that most of the media the teenagers and even those in the early 20s are exposed to is of the social kind.  Given the tech savvy elders we shouldn’t undermine them either.

‘Hru?’   If you know what it means (you can even drop the question mark there, its ‘?’, in case you wonder) then you have either been a victim or the cause. In either way you are contributing. But, I’m somehow sure you’ve known more than that. Lol, ttyl, nm, rofl,  tc, gn, gr8, f9, lmao, kewl and god knows what? 

I don’t have a problem with that. But it’s annoying to witness the amount of acronyms people use in order to save some time. And what’s more annoying is the other bunch of people who even respond to this with the similar acrostic manner. I wonder when this began. It was all when the internet industry boomed in the late 90’s and IM(instant message) was the ‘in’ thing.

I sometimes wonder as to why I feel bothered with it. Sure, I’ve read articles regarding this. But it’s not just them that have insinuated this anger against this practice. I understand the annoyance felt is not superficial but boundless.  I’ll let the therapist work it out for me. Clearly, it shouldn’t bother anyone if someone chooses to talk in a particular way unless it’s abusive or prying. Freedom of choice isn’t it?

There are a few people I know some years back discouraged this practice. Yesterday I sent one of them a chat on the messenger to which she replied  ‘gr8 to c u…!!!’ and I wondered what happened to the English language? It was disheartening.

Other day I talked to a friend online, while leaving he said “bye..cya..tc..gn” and I wondered does he really mean it? If he did, would he not go through the gruesome task of typing the complete words instead of finishing it off as if it was a compelling ritual? 

I talk to many old friends online as I find internet the best way to keep touch as they are all located all over the country and some out of it too but it’s difficult to come to terms with the kind of formal chat they put. It all appears scripted and it has to end with the ‘bye..cya..tc..gn’.

Then there are these smileys, or should I call them emoticons. Ask yourselves clearly, would you use a crying emoticon if you were really that sad. Will that sadness allow you to be so picturesque? And if it would then what kind of sorrow would it be? Is it worth labeling-sad?

While chatting with someone you want to laugh, you ‘lol’ or ‘lmao’ or ‘rofl’. I wonder if you are on the floor, or you just say it because you want to please me. Has it never happened that you just typed ‘roflmao’(that’s a derived form, I’m sure you know) and you are not even smiling to what the person just said. Has it never occurred to you as to how mechanical and inhuman you’ve turned or should I say the internet has turned you.

Take a look at yourself and evaluate the kind of language you use on the social media(no offence meant). How concise and shallow it is. Remember the last time you typed or read something sensible from your friend that affected and urged you to reflect for the minimum of a minute? I’m sure there isn’t plenty.

On the flipside, there are other arguments to this discussion. Time is important and no one has it, or should I say claims, not to have it. Texting has become our culture and though the smartphone these days provide a ‘qwerty’ keypad we choose acronyms. They say; as far as it’s understood.

Apart from that, there’s a minimum character setup. You fail that and there appears a prompt, “You’ll have to be more clever.” On the internet there’s one major criterion depending on which it is decided whether an article would be read or not, that is its length. The longer the article the less is its readability quotient.

Enough said, Survival of the fittest is a very early phenomenon humans got their hands on. So there’s a war on.  Between the authentic and the derived language and stealthily but steadily the latter is winning.  We are choosing it. And it won’t be long enough when the coming generations would witness ‘1ce der ws a f9 villag nd it ws 4evr ruind wid da kinda langage dey used’ as the commencing lines of their textbook chapters. For the love of language, I wish not live that long!

Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed are solely mine. Feel free to present counter views, challenge me or even tell me that I'm a completely ignorant dimwit in the comments section. You live in a free country and so do I. Ergo, I have the right to delete your displeasing (I decide) comments. So try and be polite.