The younger generations remarkably contributed to the development of the internet language but once it was adopted into daily life the consequences were significant such as miscommunication. Miscommunication is a phenomenon that can be widely encountered among the internet community especially among the older and younger generations or “Gen Y”. According to Subramaniam and Abdul Razak (2013) the use of abbreviations, acronyms, lexical reduction, short forms are commonly detected in the younger communities' style of writing on social media for instance, “b4” (before), “u” (you), “gr8” (great), “shud” (should) and more are familiar only among those specific group of people. Next, capitalization is also a popular encounter on social media for example “NEVER” “YES” “DON’T” are some connotations that are classified in accordance to different tones exclaiming warning, excitement, embarrassment and many more. Hence, the older generation on the other hand eventually struggle to digest the messages that are being conveyed due to the evolution of English language.

Metaphorical Extension

Next, metaphorical extension is also one of the negative effects of social media usage on the English language. Due to the usage of social media, a few words along with their meaning have been gone through the metaphorical extension process. As eloquently stated by Dalzell and Victor (2017), they claim that, with synonyms increasing every day, the English language has become far more volatile. The insinuation is that internet slangs, that seem to have been received as English words, are used everywhere in verbal communication. For example, ‘feed’ refers to the internet profiles where the users of a particular social media like Instagram or Facebook share their photos. Another example is ‘troll’ that describes the actions of attention-seeking internet users who normally use petty arguments or offensive posts on social media about other people.

The usage of social media has invented many new words for instance Selfie, Unfriend, Fleek, YOLO, DM and LOL that are being used in daily conversation which can also eventually lead to misunderstanding in terms of conveying the information. Although it made communication more convenient by shortening or creating the abbreviation, it also contained a lot of misspelling and incorrect grammar. Therefore, miscommunication tends to happen especially when these newly formed words are used in the wrong context. As stated by (Zappavigna, 2012), English seems to be simpler when people use the informal language but the ability to communicate deep thoughts might be deteriorated. 

The use of social media affects the English language as it will lead people to use improper use of informal language especially on those who are in the academic field. The new existence of vocabulary, abbreviations and internet slangs misled them to use incorrect spelling and speaking in a formal situation. For example, the short form of ‘I don’t know’ becomes ‘Idk or dunno’, ‘to be determined’ becomes ‘tbd’ and ‘keep in view’ becomes ‘kiv’. These such examples show that as the world became developed, social media users started to apply them in their daily conversation whether it is in written or spoken forms. Mistakes on spellings and speaking shows that people are adapting too much until it becomes a habit in writing a formal condition. According to Information Resources Management Association (2016), improper language skills in most conversations are full of abbreviations, misspelled words and internet slangs.