SOCIAL media slang has abducted traditional language and is manipulating the way we communicate. These prolific platforms that we have gained access to with developing technology, have also gained access to us. Although we may believe we are given the power to present ourselves however we wish through language on social media, the language filtered through these sites subconsciously stays stuck in our systems and we repeat and reproduce the vernacular that is delivered to us.

Both in the sense that we absorb what we read online like a sponge, and that we are specifically targeted with particular forms of language through filter bubbles and synthetic personalisation, language as we know it is under attack, as well as our personal lives, privacy, and individuality.

Filter bubbles, as discussed in a Ted Talk by Eli Pariser in 2011, are algorithms that dictate what we encounter online based on what we already look at. This means that every Google search of the same word will be specifically directed at the user, no two will be the same. Is this promoting individuality or removing our potential to find what we are looking for, and develop our learning. This technique was being developed years ago–imagine the level it is at now. Synthetic personalisation was first mentioned in a theory by Norman Fairclough in 1987. It explains the way social media sites target groups as if they have formed an individual relationship through phrases like ‘welcome back’. It provides a false sense of communication that detracts young people from understanding how to form genuine relationships.

Both of these methods of steering our online world in a direction it believes we want to go in are restrictive and controlling. The language we are exposed to because of the choices we make online influences the way we use language in our everyday lives, and furthers that uncomfortable knowledge that you are always being watched and monitored when you use technology.

Language is free to grow and develop as it pleases, and arguably, it could not be held back. The problem comes when technology thinks for you. It plants slang in your head and doesn’t expose you to certain forms of language, reducing your vocabulary and consequently your intelligence.

Our online lives have become as much a part of everyday as the time we spend physically communicating, so it is important to take a step back from this and consider the effects the limited language we are exposed to has on the ability for our knowledge to grow.

Bea Green

Briantspuddle