Internet Semantics: Zippidy Zoppidy give me the Boppidy

Lauren Girardin's published an article on govloop.com about The 7 Barriers to Digital Communication. I'd like to talk about one of these barriers in particular, the Semantic barrier. Semantics refers to the way something is interpreted, aka its meaning. For example, the word "yeet" formally means to throw. But through internet usage it has evolved to mean so much more.

If I ask my friend if she is still interested in hanging out and she responds with "yeet", we would both interpret that as her saying "yes, I'm still interested". But if I were to say "yeet" to my mother, she would NOT interpret that in the same way, in fact, she would be very confused. This is an example of semantics.

The language of the internet is in a league of its own and only people who use the internet in certain ways are able to understand it. Humour in particular has been so warped that what makes most things funny is that they should not be funny, or that they are unexpected (See "evolution of comedy" by Berd). But this language and humour of the internet also serves as a barrier of understanding that I myself have experienced when communicating with friends. Particularly friends that are older than me.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that age is the main reason for the barrier of understanding, because it isn't. But as I mentioned before, you develop different understandings based on how you use the internet and certain age groups typically use the internet in certain ways.

Using the 2017 infrographic created by SocialMediaToday you can see that the demographics of each social media website are different. Older people tend to stick with Facebook and LinkedIn and that limits their exposure to the Internet's ever-changing language and humour, which from my experience is not as predominant on Facebook as other websites (such as Reddit and Twitter). 



As an example, my friends who frequently use Reddit and Tumblr understand a lot more internet exclusive language and humour than my friends who don't. If we factor in the infographic then it is safe to conclude that the older you are, the less likely you are to understand the semantics of internet language and humour. This is a problem because it's widening the gap of relatability and understanding between age groups.

But what can be done about it? 


I have no idea. Perhaps as the generations of people who grew up without the internet pass on, this ever-widening gap of understanding will begin to close. Or maybe the language and humour of the internet evolves so quickly with each new generation that the gap will only get wider and wider.

Anyways, I'm out. Yeet.



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References:
Girardin. L. (2018). The 7 Barriers to Digital Communication. https://www.govloop.com/community/blog/7-barriers-digital-communication/

Leiva-Gomez. M. (2015). Is Technology Killing Our Languages https://www.maketecheasier.com/is-technology-killing-our-languages/

The Acrolinx Team. (2017). Social Speak: Is Social Media Ruining the Way We Write https://www.acrolinx.com/blog/is-social-media-ruining-the-way-we-write/

@Ilkolow. (2019). The Evolution of Language: How Internet Slang Changes the Way We Speak. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-internet-changes-language

Huchinson. A. (2017). Top Social Network Demographics 2017 [Infographic]. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/top-social-network-demographics-2017-infographic


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