I haven’t done my research, but I have noticed something. It might just be my friend groups, I don’t know if others do the same.
It’s been about 10 years since I got my first cell phone (the chocolate) and I remember when my mom forbid me from going on the internet on it because we didn’t have a data plan. Sometimes I accidentally went on Facebook… but I really do mean accidentally. I think it was about freshman year of high school is when I got the MyTouch and that’s where it all started. Data plans, text messaging with a Qwerty keyboard, and the want to own a sidekick. All of sudden a lot of people in my class were getting iPhones and I was left behind. I didn’t mind being late on tech trends, it wasn’t the main thing for me. However what I was always on is social media. I can tell you I have a lot of social media accounts, grant it I did steer away from them now. I only have a few active social media accounts and a fairly new one.
As the technology era progressed a ton of my friends and classmates communicated via text, iMessage, BBM, DMs, Tweets, etc. In order for us to type faster we started using acronyms like: LOL, TTYL, BRB, LMAO, BFFs, OMW, LMFAO, ROTFL, FML, OMG, SMH etc. We “laughed” a lot in our messages. But now there has been articles that I can’t argue against that sometimes we use the laughing acronyms even when we don’t actually laugh. To steer away from that stereotype we sometimes capitalize all letters or end up typing “HAHAHAHA!” For some reason adding multiple acronyms right after each other or excess letters in the acronym also implies that we really are laughing or our reaction is for real.
What I have realized is that, at least me, I sometimes end up spelling out the acronyms in real life conversations! I didn’t notice it until someone pointed out. Then I noticed a lot of people doing it. Then I noticed that I did it a lot! It’s weird how many of us have made this tech language a part of our daily dialogue. We’ve been spending too much time on our phones and the internet that we’re losing some words that used to be used. Whatever happened to: “I’ll be right back!” ” *laughs* oh that was hilarious!” *Shakes head* “Why did you do that?” instead we say the text verbage versions of these. So now my questions are: Have millennials gone to a new trend where technology has seeped into everyday conversation? How can you stop this epidemic? Is this something that goes into social media strategies?
If I do some research, I’ll post an update!
P.S. The feature photo is a photo of me and my old second touchscreen phone (MyTouch 4G). Photo credits to my cousin who visited me during my high school years <3.
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