The influence of social media on society

When mobile phones had just come into the picture, we thought it was the best thing to happen to mankind since sliced bread. But over the years, technology has evolved and helped us out of the dark ages. Even though television and radio are still highly recommended in regards to receiving and giving information, gadgets like the Blackberry and iPhone have been of sufficient help too. You have access to Skype, Facebook, Twitter and several social networks where you can literally access information and people at anytime of the day and night. Contrary to what some people think, news of any kind is not only found in newspapers, television or radio. There is so much knowledge you can acquire from these networks other than what’s current. Chatting on the net has become vastly popular with the help of clients like, Yahoo Messenger. But we all know that chatting isn’t as easy or as fun if we have to type in every single detail. In came the short words to help express ourselves without actually laying all the words on the table. Terms like; FYI, WTF, OMG and LOL are popular because they are used in person-to-person chats. To say that the rise of social media has influenced the use of these terms in the public domain is an understatement. The Oxford English Dictionary which is the longest official dictionary; as stated by The Guinness Book of World Records is in agreement with these words since they have now added a whole slew of these abbreviations to the library. We use them because they are faster to type whether we are texting or tweeting. And we can’t say there is no fun in there either. Commonly known as “initialisms”, these little words help to say more in media where there is a limit to a number of characters one may use in a single message. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the rise of these helpful acronyms has influenced other media as well such as film. It is helpful, fun and saves a lot of time so what’s not to love? As the years go on, more of these words will crop in and who knows, maybe the entire dictionary won’t have a single English word by 2020! Imagine a whole sentence with nothing but initialisms! That would really be something. LOL. They are as effective as any other form of communication if the fact that even elderly people are acquainted with them is anything to go by. Maybe some people might frown and say it is something for the youth but it is in every way a mode of communication and one that is catching on like a wild fire. Do not be shocked when one day you hear your dad in his room saying, ‘WTF is my tie?’ In fact be grateful that he didn’t use the exact words! Lol. cjanzi83@yahoo.co.uk