In this day and age, most all people have a cell phone. I have seen young children as young as the age of 8 and 9 with a cell phone all the way up to 100. Adults and the older generations are starting to become more tuned into using cell phones, and children just seem to automatically know how to use them. I am sure that most everyone has seen the following commerical. It was popular some years ago, and it was a catchy and interesting commercial.
This commercial perfectly displays technology and language both as borders.There is a new type of language that is used that is primarily used on texting and through technology. As the young girl in this commercial proves, people just use the abbreviations for words and phrases instead of just typing out or saying the whole thing. I think that the point of these abbreviations are to make the texting quicker, but people brought this type of language into actual conversation just as in the commercial. What is surprising though is that the mom knew what she was saying and what everything stood for. Technology and this type of language started to become popular in our generation, so the older generations typically do not know or understand it. This is what causes the language barrier between people. Some people understand this new type of talk while others do not. My mom frequently will ask me what different abbreviations mean, and sometimes I do not even know. I think that older people use them more now because it makes texting easier for them, but then the abbreviations become confusing because there are so many. Maybe it's just me, but I barely use these abbreviations on texting. I think that it is now less popular than when people first started to do it, but now the language is becoming even more intricate. A perfect example of this language barrier happened to me when I was in the computer lab. An older man was in there and he turned to me asked what "tbh" meant. I told him that as far as I knew it stood for "to be honest." Therefore, whoever he was chatting with obviously has a different form of the language, and it caused a barrier between them to the extent that he was not sure what this person why trying to say to him.
Going along with this, technology also creates a barrier. As previously mentioned, the older generations typically did not have much technology, so it is new to them and we are better acquainted with it. This can cause barriers because we tend to text and email frequently, so the older generations may not be able to get into contact with us as easily if they do not also use these technologies. Technology also keeps growing as time goes on, so it will probably be soon that the next new thing is introduced. These new ways of using technology will continue to grow and the barriers created may become even larger. It is interesting to think how we will possibly be communicating in the future, and what our grandchildren will one day be using. Will we be able to use and understand their new ways, or will we be the ones who are now confused? Language and technology both are capable of creating language barriers that people will need to overcome in order to stay in contact with one another.
I completely agree with all of the points you made in your post, and I think the borders go even deeper than simple age and generation differences. Texting has become the ubiquitous mode of communication, whereas calling seems almost outdated. I think it's true to say that the number of phone calls have declined drastically with the advent of texting. Accordingly, I feel that this shift in communication has not only affected the connection between the young and the old, but amongst all people in general. We've become distanced from one another by hiding behind texting and the ridiculous abbreviations and intricacies it comes with. The worst part is that this new language has trespassed into face-to-face communication; a little piece of me dies inside every time I hear my girlfriend literally say "LOL". It detaches the person from emotion. Rather than embodying expressivity, we minimize our emotions to mere letters. Sure, there's some variation and severity in these abbreviations (LOL, LMAO, and the trump of them all ROTFL), but "lol'ing" will never be the same as actually laughing out loud.
I also concur with all of both Dennis and Kylee. It is completely accurate of how people simply utter the abbreviations for words instead of saying the whole word or phrase. I know many of my friends will say "idk" and not "I don't know" and just like Dennis' girlfriend, they will say LOL out loud. I think the trend towards using texting for all communication is bad as there are just some things that you cannot say through a text message. Either a face to face conversation or an actual phone call is needed. I know that this past week, I have had to talk to a few people in person as it was about a topic that simply cannot be conveyed through a devoid of emotion text message. If the trend continues, i can foresee the public becoming somewhat inept in actually communicating with people as it is all done electronically. Hopefully, with the invention of things like apple's facetime and the whole concept of skype, our type of communication can start to deviate and not rely so heavily on typed electronic messages and get back to actually using the language skills that make us humans a unique species.
In my opinion, one huge border that texting, email, and other modes of instant communication have tried to overcome is that of time itself. During World War II, my grandmother would hand-write three letters each night, one to each of her brothers in Europe with the American Navy. She wouldn't hear back for weeks at a time, so she recalls the wave of excitement that would overcome her each time she would discover a new letter in the mailbox. In today's world, I am not dealing with anything as heartbreaking as brothers fighting in the war, however I am not nearly as patient in terms of communication. I become antsy when I submit an assignment and resort to checking my grades multiple times every single day. Only when considering the lag time in communication of older generations does it occur to me that by obsessing over other people's response times, we are missing out on life. People still deserve a chance to consider their thoughts and contemplate their answer before responding to communication, however today's obsession with instant feedback simply does not afford us the opportunity to do so. While the borders that are crossed by new forms of technology and education enable us to 'do' more and 'accomplish' more tasks more quickly, is it really worth it? Maybe society could benefit from slower feedback, a stage in technology and communication that forced older generations to sit back and smell the roses. Unfortunately, with the way we're going, we'll simply be posting pictures of said roses to Facebook, impatiently waiting to see how many 'likes' we can rack up.
I completely agree with all of the points you made in your post, and I think the borders go even deeper than simple age and generation differences. Texting has become the ubiquitous mode of communication, whereas calling seems almost outdated. I think it's true to say that the number of phone calls have declined drastically with the advent of texting. Accordingly, I feel that this shift in communication has not only affected the connection between the young and the old, but amongst all people in general. We've become distanced from one another by hiding behind texting and the ridiculous abbreviations and intricacies it comes with. The worst part is that this new language has trespassed into face-to-face communication; a little piece of me dies inside every time I hear my girlfriend literally say "LOL". It detaches the person from emotion. Rather than embodying expressivity, we minimize our emotions to mere letters. Sure, there's some variation and severity in these abbreviations (LOL, LMAO, and the trump of them all ROTFL), but "lol'ing" will never be the same as actually laughing out loud.
ReplyDeleteI also concur with all of both Dennis and Kylee. It is completely accurate of how people simply utter the abbreviations for words instead of saying the whole word or phrase. I know many of my friends will say "idk" and not "I don't know" and just like Dennis' girlfriend, they will say LOL out loud. I think the trend towards using texting for all communication is bad as there are just some things that you cannot say through a text message. Either a face to face conversation or an actual phone call is needed. I know that this past week, I have had to talk to a few people in person as it was about a topic that simply cannot be conveyed through a devoid of emotion text message. If the trend continues, i can foresee the public becoming somewhat inept in actually communicating with people as it is all done electronically. Hopefully, with the invention of things like apple's facetime and the whole concept of skype, our type of communication can start to deviate and not rely so heavily on typed electronic messages and get back to actually using the language skills that make us humans a unique species.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, one huge border that texting, email, and other modes of instant communication have tried to overcome is that of time itself. During World War II, my grandmother would hand-write three letters each night, one to each of her brothers in Europe with the American Navy. She wouldn't hear back for weeks at a time, so she recalls the wave of excitement that would overcome her each time she would discover a new letter in the mailbox.
ReplyDeleteIn today's world, I am not dealing with anything as heartbreaking as brothers fighting in the war, however I am not nearly as patient in terms of communication. I become antsy when I submit an assignment and resort to checking my grades multiple times every single day. Only when considering the lag time in communication of older generations does it occur to me that by obsessing over other people's response times, we are missing out on life. People still deserve a chance to consider their thoughts and contemplate their answer before responding to communication, however today's obsession with instant feedback simply does not afford us the opportunity to do so.
While the borders that are crossed by new forms of technology and education enable us to 'do' more and 'accomplish' more tasks more quickly, is it really worth it? Maybe society could benefit from slower feedback, a stage in technology and communication that forced older generations to sit back and smell the roses. Unfortunately, with the way we're going, we'll simply be posting pictures of said roses to Facebook, impatiently waiting to see how many 'likes' we can rack up.