Written task: blog

Hey my followers!

Today I will talk about the Internet, social networks and language used in it. 

The other day I read on-line a newspaper article form 1995 (a bit old, I know), talking about some problems or issues that the Internet was supposed to bring to our society. And I have to say that some of the issues presented in the text remain till today, such as the fact that teachers are increasingly supporting their classes with new technologies, the developing "cyber business" (which, as said I the text, it is not yet completely reliable) or some other things that the author does not say but came up to my mind later: what is happening nowadays with all this chatting apps, is that they are causing that we don't phone each other or get together to talk anymore. This is making us to isolate from the world around us, spending more and more time on our phones and in the Internet. However, this also has an impact on our language, how we use it and the way we communicate.

Now, let's focus on the language used on the Internet and social networks. We as teenagers choose this way to communicate with each other instead of calling or talking face to face, and we don't always use words for doing this. Now we can express our thoughts and ideas by using emojis (those funny little faces that express different moods and things), acronyms (like LOL) or abbreviations. Also, with the rise of these expressions and social media we don't feel the need (and sometimes as in Twitter and its 140 characters, we are not able) to fully explain and elaborate an idea, tending to be more brief, concise and getting to our point faster. Consequently, we have replaced traditional language and changed the way we communicate. This has brought some trouble to students, since they still need to do homework (such as essays) and tests for school. Not being used to developing ideas, kids these days have difficulties to write long essays or works, and if they do, they are full of grammatical errors and typing mistakes.

Likewise, I would like to tell that I consider age an important factor too when discussing this matter. Teenagers and young people in general tend to use this type of "language" because they might consider that it's easier and faster to use. Older people on the other hand, weren't born surrounded by technology, so they don't have the same ease as we do to use computers, iPods or mobile phones. As a consequence, they don't understand what those signs, abbreviations and drawings (I mean emojis) are, so they found that it's not easy to use them. 

While we spend more time than ever on our phones and social media, the evolution of language has been easier and faster than ever. This is possible thanks to the opportunity to instantly interact with the big audiences offered by this type of sites. There is no longer the need to publish a new word in an important magazine, newspaper or be someone influent in the academic world, as long as you have a significant amount of on-line followers. An example of this would be the use of the word "troll".  This word it's no longer a creature that belongs to the Scandinavian culture. Instead, this word is now used to designate a person who provoke and mock the rest.

Going back to the newspaper article, the author says that the Internet and technology are replacing "human contact", considering this as a bad thing and that we should worry about it. And I think he is completely right. He says one phrase that I consider important :"computers and networks isolate us from one another". Does it ring any bells? Now, let's remember that this article was written in 1995, almost 20 years ago, and even though he was right, Nowadays Internet, and particularly social networks, have made that we isolate form the world around us leaving "important aspects of human interactions relentlessly devalued". And this my friends, has caused that language and the ways we communicate with each other to change. It's all connected: while we spend more of our time on-line (and I repeat this one more time: isolating ourselves from the world), we find new ways of talking and interacting among us, therefore varying the type of language we use to fulfil this goal.

So, is there a solution for this? Yes and no. There is a solution to the problem that we are spending too much time on our phones: quit them. I know it's hard, but try to put them away every now and then, maybe try to talk to someone face to face (or am I going too far?). On the other hand, evolution of the language is not an easy thing to stop, so there is no much to do. 

What about you? Do you think that we are isolating from the world? And what about the language we will use in the future?

Thank you for reading!

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Rationale

The text I wrote is directly related to what we saw in class, because I spoke about mass media, more specifically about the Internet and social media and language used in it. I also made references to the evolution of the ways we communicate, and how this is related to social media. 
I chose this type of text (blog) because of two reasons: it was more informal than the speech, for example, so it was more appropriate for addressing my target audience; and by being less formal, it was easier for me to develop my idea, as I do not need to worry about the way I'm writing. Besides, it allowed me to use sarcasm which is attractive to my target audience. That said, my target audience are teenagers and young people as they spend a lot of time on-line. An example of this would be the following, "We as teenagers", where I assume that the person who is reading is a teenager.
The type of language I used is informal, because as I said before, my intended audience are teenagers and they wouldn't like to read a very formal text. This type of language is more appealing to them. One example of this is the phrase "Does it ring any bells?"