The impact of technology
Here are some statistics for you:
 More people currently have a mobile phone capable of accessing the internet than have a PC with net access (source: Mobile Top Level Domain, the organisation charged with overseeing the ‘.mobi’ domain name registration)
 Sending text messages is now almost as common as talking on mobile phones
 Only 12% of mobile users never use their phone for texting (and virtually half of these people are over 65).
 70% of 15-24 year-olds say they ‘could not live’ without their mobile phone
 There are an estimated 110 million-150 million blogs in existence (although many of these are abandoned soon after they are established)
Technology’s role in our lives is astonishing. Its effect on the way we communicate has changed the English language forever.
To be more specific, the way we speak today is, by and large, the way we spoke before the internet became what it is, albeit with an enriched vocabulary. Conventions of telephone conversations have, to my mind, changed little: we still use the same methods – if not words – to greet and sign off, for example.
What is hugely different, however, is the way we write today. That is the area where technology has had the biggest impact.
Email altered the structure of the letter as a communicative tool. It brought with it a whole new etiquette, as well as new conventions and new abbreviations, such as IMO (in my opinion), FWIW (for what it’s worth), IIRC (if I remember correctly) and FYI (for your information).
And it introduced the idea that WORDS IN UPPER CASE MEAN WE ARE SHOUTING, while lower case writing is the accepted form.
But email English is nothing compared to the impact upon language driven by mobile phone users. The rate and extent of change this has had is truly