Webspeak/Netspeak is its own culture. American’s are more suseptible to the short hand or “code” talk as identified in the readings because we are more vulnerable to the technologies. The primary tool that is sucking us into this new culture is our cell phones. From the begining of IM on AOL Instant messanger, the spread of shor text or netspeak has moved rapidly through our society.
The points that were interesting to me and that I beleive influence our American culture revolve around the notes about speech versus writing. The overall acceptability of “slang” abbreviations and untraditional grammer are overlooked in today’s society. The primary audience is teenagers that are raised in the technology age where the focus is quick, short, and not gramatically proper.
I must admit english is not my strongest subject. However, when I was a teen we had slang, but not breivity as the teenagers of today have and use. I do aggre with Baron’s findings as noted above we have incorportate IM/Text languae into our conversations in person, online, television, even in music.
I agree with your point that millenials have been raised using new technology and have quick, short attention spans. My attention span is very short, and I think a lot of it can be attributed to the technology and channels I use in my life. At work, for instance, I can’t stand for meetings and phone calls to last more than 30 minutes, mostly because I think what needs to be said can be done in under 30 minutes. But I feel Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers like to drag things out and focus on one thing for an extended period of time.
I agree with your statement “the primary audience is teenagers that are raised in the technology age where the focus is quick, short, and not grammatically proper.” So many adults are trying to stay hip and informed on the language that the youth are using in order to fit in but what happen to making the youth speak proper English. Technology has caused our attention spam to be short because we want everything so quickly.
You mention that use of slang and incorrect grammar are more acceptable today than they have been in the past. I think that is a product of our easy access to communication devices, and therefore less time spent on editing ones written dialogue. Because messages are so easy to send and received, we pay attention to the ones we get less and less (to notice these errors) because we get so many of them a day.
I agree that between slang terms on AOL and overuse of cell phones, today’s culture has become heavily influenced. I’m about to turn 21 in a few weeks, and I never saw as many shortenings and slang terms in my teen years as I have in today’s society. English has never been one of my best subjects either, but nowadays, I need help to determine what terms such as “LOLZ” and “CYL” mean. The language itself is what I find unbearable. Friendly conversations via phones are being replaced by suggestive text message that leave little to the imagination.