A Linguist Explains: How Social Media Is Changing the Way We Speak

Complaints about declining language standards predate smartphones. New forms of communication, from the printing press to the telephone, have frequently been accused of making people careless, lazy, or less articulate. Similar fears accompanied the growth of instant messaging. Abbreviations such as LOL, OMG, and BTW, along with unconventional spelling and punctuation, were treated as evidence that young people had forgotten how to write properly.

However, linguistic research paints a different picture. In a study of teenagers’ instant messages, Tagliamonte and Denis (2008) ↗ found that the participants used far more standard language than popular stereotypes suggested. Abbreviations and novel spellings were present, but they represented only a relatively small portion of the language in the messages. Much of what appeared new also continued older features of informal speech. The researchers concluded that instant messaging was not linguistic “ruin.” Instead, it demonstrated teenagers’ ability to adapt language creatively to a new environment.

This distinction matters. Linguists generally do not divide language into “good” and “bad” forms. They ask what a particular form does, who uses it, and in which situations it appears. Writing idk in a message to a friend does not mean that someone has forgotten how to write I don’t know. It means that the writer understands the conventions of more than one communicative setting.

Social media communication is technically written, but it often behaves like conversation. Posts and messages may be produced quickly, exchanged interactively, and addressed directly to an audience. As a result, digital writing combines characteristics traditionally associated with both writing and speech. Users have developed creative ways to represent conversational cues that ordinary writing does not easily capture. Repeated letters can indicate emphasis—soooo good—while capital letters may represent increased VOLUME or INTENSITY(!!). A period can sound unusually serious in a short message, and an ellipsis may suggest hesitation, suspense, or discomfort.

Punctuation, spacing, GIFs, and emojis can therefore function like tone of voice, facial expression, or gesture. Dresner and Herring (2010)↗ argue that emoticons do more than display emotion: they can help readers interpret the intended force of an utterance. In other words, a symbol can indicate whether a message should be understood as a joke, criticism, request, or friendly tease.

Compare these two messages: That was clever. That was clever 😂

The words are identical, but the emoji changes the likely interpretation. In the second message, it may signal amusement, irony, or affectionate disbelief. Context still matters, but the emoji helps guide the reader toward an intended tone. These resources are not replacements for language. They are additions to our communicative repertoire.

The influence also moves in the opposite direction: features that begin or become popular online can enter face-to-face speech. People now say expressions such as LOL, hashtag blessed, the algorithm knows me, or POV aloud. Others use internet-derived terms such as unfollow, doomscrolling, ratioed, clickbait, ghosting, and sliding into someone’s DMs to discuss experiences that may occur both online and offline.

Some expressions also undergo semantic change. Friend and follow, for instance, existed long before social media, but platforms turned them into digital actions. Viral once referred primarily to the spread of a virus; it can now describe a joke, image, or video circulating rapidly through a population.

Not every popular expression will survive. Slang has always included words that spread quickly and then disappear. What is different is the scale of contemporary circulation. A phrase used by one creator can be repeated by millions of people across geographic and social boundaries within days.

Nevertheless, it would be too simple to say that a platform single-handedly “invented” a word. Expressions frequently originate in smaller communities—including African American, LGBTQ+, gaming, fandom, and youth communities—before becoming visible to a larger audience. When they travel, their meanings may shift, and their original social and cultural associations may be obscured. Dr. Adam Aleksic↗ explains this and much more in his book "Algospeak".

Understanding language change therefore requires us to ask not only what is spreading, but also whose language is being circulated, imitated, or commercialized.

Social media platforms do not circulate every expression equally. Recommendation systems select which posts users see and how often they encounter them. Repetition can make a word or phrase recognizable, while creators may imitate successful formats to reach a larger audience. Users also modify language to navigate platform rules. Terms created in this environment can sometimes leave the platform and enter ordinary conversation. This does not mean that an algorithm understands language or intentionally creates vocabulary. Rather, platform design changes the conditions under which people choose, repeat, and interpret words. The technology influences the environment; human beings still perform linguistic innovation.

Social media exposes users to linguistic forms from communities they might never encounter locally. This can encourage the rapid sharing of slang, pronunciations, catchphrases, and conversational styles. But increased contact does not necessarily make everyone linguistically identical. People continue to adapt shared expressions to local languages and identities. The same meme may appear in English, Italian, Spanish, or a multilingual mix, taking on different cultural references in each community.

In multilingual spaces, users may also switch languages within a post, borrow words, or combine linguistic resources to address multiple audiences at once. Social media can therefore promote both globalization and linguistic diversity. What looks like one global internet language is actually a collection of overlapping styles, communities, and conventions.

Social media is changing the way we communicate, but change is not the same as deterioration. Digital platforms have expanded the environments in which language operates and given speakers new tools for expressing humor, stance, emotion, and identity.

Some innovations will disappear. Others will become ordinary enough that people eventually forget they were once considered internet slang. That is what languages do: they adapt to the lives of their speakers.

The more revealing question is not whether social media is ruining language. It is how people use language to make an unfamiliar communicative environment feel social, expressive, and human. And if the answer includes a carefully selected emoji, that is still language at work.

References

• Aleksic, A. (2025). Algospeak: How social media is transforming the future of language. Knopf. ↗
• Dresner, E., & Herring, S. C. (2010). Functions of the nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and illocutionary force. Communication Theory, 20(3), 249–268. ↗
• Tagliamonte, S. A., & Denis, D. (2008). Linguistic ruin? LOL! Instant messaging and teen language. American Speech, 83(1), 3–34. ↗