Here’s a report on the impact of the Internet on the English Language.

It is clear that despite the brief period it has been in existence mass media and
especially the Internet have already had a deep impact on the everyday life.
Nowadays we get information from newspapers, magazines, radio and mostly from
websites. Considering the fact that English is the major international language in
the world and it is constantly changing to accommodate developments in
technology and culture, it is perhaps not surprising that the language we use now
has been drastically affected.

Looking backwards, it could be said that it took years or even decades for word
usage to warrant inclusion in the dictionary. Radio and TV shortened the amount
of time it took for new terms to gain traction, but the real revolution has occurred
over the past several years thanks to the Internet and other technologies. 

Now, the development of the English language is accelerating at an unprecedented

rate and social media has also become a driving force behind the new words that
are surfacing in the English vocabulary. The majority of the words that are being
suggested for inclusion in dictionaries are either terms that describe various aspects
of social media or words that have achieved widespread recognition due to the
prolific social media use of pop culture influencers. 

“Tweeps”, “cyberstalking”, “twitlit” and “YOLO” are just a few of the social
media-inspired suggestions that have are being considered for dictionary inclusion.
Though not directly related to social media, other word suggestions like
“Tebowing”, “cray” and “mantyhose” have filtered through the culture via
Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. 

There is another important consideration. Nowadays the kind of new English being
written by twitter and what’s app users, particularly young people is however so
frightening and lamentable, because it is beginning to creep into regular writing.
Texting and tweeting is producing a generation of users of English, (it is worse that
they are using English as a second language), who cannot write grammatically
successful sentences.

This new group of English users does not know the difference between a comma
and a colon. They have no regard for punctuation. They mix up pronouns,
cannibalize verbs and adverbs, ignore punctuation; and violate all rules of lexis and
syntax. Thus there is the risk that the future generation will be showing a lack of
capacity to write meaningful prose, or communicate properly or even think
correctly.

Many of the children who have become socialized into this new mode of
communication are not always able to differentiate between correct and incorrect
English, and this is why parents and teachers must be concerned. It is possible to
assume that the teaching of morphology and syntax in our various schools is no
longer as rigorous as it used to be.

I would like to conclude with two major items. Social media plays an important
role in determining how dictionaries learn about potential new words. With the
Internet, especially Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, increasing
popularity, pronounces are often mixed up, verbs and adverbs are often
cannibalized.

Anyway, social media is here to stay. Going forward, it seems likely that social
media will have an even greater presence in our daily lives – and a dominant
influence over the evolution of the English language. We will have to adapt.

PS: Twitter only offers you 140 characters. You got to be brief!