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There can be no denying that social media has a significant impact on the ways that we communicate. Its ever-evolving nature leaves our language in a continuous state of alteration and regeneration. Facebook, for example, as one of the leading social media platforms in the world, has made itself a near necessity for connecting with loved ones, friends, colleagues and acquaintances around the globe. With over 829 million daily users, according to Facebook's newsroom, it has transformed our ability to stay in touch with those who would otherwise be out of reach, and it has allowed its users to have a closer tie with a growing number of people who share common interests and backgrounds, thus producing a social network far beyond anything we could have ever imagined.

The influence of these social media sites and platforms on our language, then, is a true phenomenon. It has managed to alter our vocabulary, increase the number of communications we have every day and the speed at which we have them, and leave us feeling a newfound responsibility to remain connected with the world at large.

Here's a closer look at how and why this is happening.
Social Media Alters Vocabulary
Social media impacts our language by altering the meaning of some of our vocabulary. Let's take Pinterest, for example. Built to allow its users to mark and sort interesting, new ideas, the social media platform has changed the way we view the words "pin," "pinning" and "pinned." We know these words to be representative of a physical pin with which we are able to pin a project or paper to a corkboard. Here, in the online world, "pinning" is descriptive of a similar concept, just to a board that only exists digitally. We then hear our social media cohorts saying things like, "Check out my pin," or "I was pinning this morning while I had my coffee."
Social Media Introduces New Vocabulary
Just as social media alters the usage of our language, so, too, does it introduce new usage and vocabulary. With the need for quick and succinct language and communications online, full verb phrases have become common acronyms that are now used in everyday settings and not just online. Phrases such as "rolling on the floor laughing" or "talk to you later" are quickly changed to "ROFL" or "TTYL." These short acronyms creep up in everyday language, proving that sometimes words, when put together, can make you "LOL" or "laugh out loud."
Social Media Increases the Volume and Speed of Daily Communications
With the introduction of verb-phrase acronyms in modern technology, daily communications are able to cut down on the number of words and characters used to accurately hold a conversation. This means that we are able to more efficiently communicate and with greater speed. As these conversations happen at an alarming rate, the volume with which we are sending out communications has also increased.

Some of the more popular social media sites limit the number of characters you can use in a post. Twitter, for example, limits the "Tweet" to 140 characters, thus pushing its users to become more adept at saying what they want or need to say with fewer words.
Social Media Increases the Responsibility of Remaining Connected
As communications become quicker and make a growing number of people more accessible than ever before, the responsibilities and expectations of having those communications increase. Think of the many different groups of people that we connect with on a daily basis. As our ability to reach members of groups who are thousands of miles away increases, so, too, does the requirement to keep in touch with as many group members as possible. What used to be limited by distance, thus making a very limited circle of people, now contributes to a very complex social and professional sphere.

It's a matter of fact that social media is transforming the way that language is looked at and used. Its hold over language usage is evident in the amount of communications we have daily, the number of people with whom we communicate and the nature and style with which we choose to communicate. As technology and social media continues to advance, there will surely be more language-altering shifts occurring.
Image Credit: thenextweb Kate Wilson is an avid reader and writer of all things language. Since completing her studies in English and Modern Standard Arabic, she has continued to exercise her passion for language through her blogging. You can read more of her writing on her blog at JetFeeds.com, where she writes about everything from foreign language acquisition to urban gardening, or follow her on Twitter @kateowilson.

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There can be no denying that social media has a significant impact on the ways that we communicate. Its ever-evolving nature leaves our language in a continuous state of alteration and regeneration.

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By Jon Reed

Fromunfriend to selfie, social media is clearly having an impact on language. As someone who writes about social media I'm aware of not only how fast these online platforms change, but also of how they influence the language in which I write.

The words that surround us every day influence the words we use. Since so much of the written language we see is now on the screens of our computers, tablets, and smartphones, language now evolves partly through our interaction with technology. And because the language we use to communicate with each other tends to be more malleable than formal writing, the combination of informal, personal communication and the mass audience afforded by social media is a recipe for rapid change.

From the introduction of new words to new meanings for old words to changes in the way we communicate, social media is making its presence felt.

New ways of communicating

An alphabet soup of acronyms, abbreviations, and neologisms has grown up around technologically mediated communication to help us be understood. I'm old enough to have learned the acronyms we now think of as textspeak on the online forums and 'Internet relay chat' (IRC) that pre-dated text messaging. On IRC, acronyms help speed up a real-time typed conversation. On mobile phones they minimize the inconvenience of typing with tiny keys. And on Twitter they help you make the most of your 140 characters.

Emoticons such as ;-) and acronyms such as LOL ('laughing out loud' - which has just celebrated its 25th birthday) add useful elements of non-verbal communication - or annoy people with their overuse. This extends to playful asterisk-enclosed stage directions describing supposed physical actions or facial expressions (though use with caution: it turns out that *innocent face* is no defence in court).

An important element of Twitter syntax is the hashtag - a clickable keyword used to categorize tweets. Hashtags have also spread to other social media platforms - and they've even reached everyday speech, but hopefully spoofs such as Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake's sketch on The Tonight Show will dissuade us from using them too frequently. But you will find hashtags all over popular culture, from greetings cards and t-shirts to the dialogue of sitcom characters.

Syntax aside, social media has also prompted a more subtle revolution in the way we communicate. We share more personal information, but also communicate with larger audiences. Our communication styles consequently become more informal and more open, and this seeps into other areas of life and culture. When writing on social media, we are also more succinct, get to the point quicker, operate within the creative constraints of 140 characters on Twitter, or aspire to brevity with blogs.

New words and meanings

Facebook has also done more than most platforms to offer up new meanings for common words such as friend, like, status, wall, page, and profile. Other new meanings which crop up on social media channels also reflect the dark side of social media: a troll is no longer just a character from Norse folklore, but someone who makes offensive or provocative comments online; a sock puppet is no longer solely a puppet made from an old sock, but a self-serving fake online persona; and astroturfing is no longer simply laying a plastic lawn but also a fake online grass-roots movement.

Social media is making it easier than ever to contribute to the evolution of language. You no longer have to be published through traditional avenues to bring word trends to the attention of the masses. While journalists have long provided the earliest known uses of topical terms - everything from 1794's pew-rent in The Times to beatboxing in The Guardian (1987) - the net has been widened by the " net." A case in point is Oxford Dictionaries 2013 Word of the Year, selfie: the earliest use of the word has been traced to an Australian Internet forum. With forums, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels offering instant interaction with wide audiences, it's never been easier to help a word gain traction from your armchair.

Keeping current

Some people may feel left behind by all this. If you're a lawyer grappling with the new geek speak, you may need to use up court time to have terms such as Rickrolling explained to you. And yes, some of us despair at how use of this informal medium can lead to an equally casual attitude to grammar. But the truth is that social media is great for word nerds. It provides a rich playground for experimenting with, developing, and subverting language.

It can also be a great way keep up with these changes. Pay attention to discussions in your social networks and you can spot emerging new words, new uses of words - and maybe even coin one yourself.
A version of this post first appeared on OxfordWords blog.

Jon Reed is the author of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing and runs the website Publishing Talk. He is also on Twitter at @jonreed.

Image: via Shutterstock.

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By Jon Reed From unfriend to selfie, social media is clearly having an impact on language. As someone who writes about social media I'm aware of not only how fast these online platforms change, but also of how they influence the language in which I write.

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It has been a delight to listen to your reflections and read your posts. It is indeed a fact that languages evolve just as people evolve, and adaptation can sometimes bring changes that will not be easily accepted. At the same time, change will take away practices and traditions if we let it. Fortunately, it is on us to preserve what we value and still be able to “adapt to and accept” evolution and changes.

Thank you so much for your valuable contributions!!!