In terms of Netspeak’s influence on our culture, I actually believe that it has been blown out of proportion by the media. For instance, does anyone else remember an extremely funny cell phone commercial that featured a family speaking all in text lingo? There was a sweet old grandmother who had the classic line, “IDK my BFF Jill.” It was a huge hit. However, as funny as the premise of that commercial was, I have never been around anyone who actually talks in text speak. Although advertisements do feature Netspeak and text message acronyms, actually saying things like “LOL” or “OMG” in day to day life rarely happens. In my experience, the only time it is ever used is in a sarcastic or humorous situation. Generally that is the way it is utilized in media as well. Characters in movies do not use Netspeak, unless they are caricatures or being used for comedic reasons. Almost every teen movie from the nineties featured a scene where an uncool dad tried to relate to his children by saying “OMG” or talking completely in text message lingo. The perception is that Netspeak is completely taking over how younger generations speak, but the truth is that it is not as common offline as people think.
I do agree that Netspeak is a hybrid language. There is, for most people, a distinction between how they write and how they speak. A formal paper is not going to be written in the same style that a person would speak. Within computer mediated communication, there are also distinctly different types of writing patterns. I do not use the same language in emails to my professors as I do in emails to my friends. I also do not text message everyone in the same manner. I think we compartmentalize the different types of communication styles that we have. The formal style is reserved for school and business, the abbreviation style is reserved for text messages and social media, and so on. We are constantly flipping back and forth between what communication style we are using. Baron addresses this to some extent when she comments that school children know when to use formal language and when to not use it. We know what is acceptable in what situation, and we match our communication style to that situation.
Because Netspeak is a hybrid language, it is also a hybrid of speech and writing. There really is no way to generalize it as more speech than writing or vice versa, because it has multiple elements of both. In response to the question “Are instant messages speech?”, Baron writes that the “simple answer is no.” I must disagree with Baron on this point, because I do not believe there is a simple answer for this question. How you communicate through CMC changes from situation to situation, therefore sometimes it resembles a natural speech pattern and sometimes it resembles formal writing. I do not believe enough time has passed since the creation and evolution of Netspeak/Webspeakfor us to accurately label it as speech or writing.