The guys over at Lucky 6 Marketing were kind enough to post our guest blog last week. This week we return the favour with a blog from Lee on social media and the development of language.

The great blog post by Language Insight last week got us thinking. How does social media affect spoken and written word? How will it affect the development of language in the future?

A good example is the mobile phone revolution of the 90s and early 2000s. It was during these two decades that text messaging became one of the most popular forms of communication. With the mass adoption of messaging via a limited character count came the first major changes in language.

Early phones had dot matrix screen where it was only possible to read two lines of text. The often frustrating way of reading small amounts of text at any one point lead to text language. An abbreviation of popular sayings allowing quick reading of messages. This cultural change exploded within society between the years of 1995 – 2005. Since that time most abbreviations have died out but some remain. I commonly hear people say ‘lol’ to express humour and ‘CBA’ to convey various feelings.

Social media is now working its way into millions of lives just as text messaging did. With the adoption of social media it is surprising to find text talk is frowned upon and against social media etiquette. Due to this we can assume similar abbreviations will not find their way into our language, as happened with the use of text messages. Instead we predict a different outcome. The need for quick and easy content and short bites of information.

Tweets are limited to 140 characters. Facebook posts work most successfully when kept below two sentences. We at Lucky 6 Marketing know this first hand. Last month (March 2012) we sent out over 250 tweets for ourselves and clients. People do not engage with content if it is too long. They want quick and easy access to information.

Will social media lead to more concise publications? Will it lead to shorter books and articles? Will society demand information to be summarised into headlines for quick reading?

Let us know your thoughts below with quick, clear and concise comments (or by all means make your views as full and informative as you like).

Image from Gamma Man