New Mode of Information

Last weeks lecture was really interesting because I have quite often pondered the idea about what would I do if I didn’t have my mobile phone. If you are at a concert with friends and you get separated, it’s not really a big deal because you can either text or call them and meet up with them later. Yet I remember when there was a time that I went to a concert with friends or to a gathering of large people and I didn’t have my cell phone. Yet getting separated from my friends was never a big deal because somehow we always managed to meet up later. Today’s society and largely younger members of society are way too dependent on technology and in particular the mobile phone. I plead guilty to that as I always have large text conversations when I am sitting at home, instead of picking up the phone and having a normal conversation, I will spend 20 cents having a text conversation.
It is summed up nicely with a theorist named Mark Poster, who believes that there is an emergence of new mode of information (email, text messaging and even television) and because of this new mode of information we have entered into a new linguistic stage. Meaning that a new form of language has emerged. This is so true when you look at how a text message and quite often an informal email are written. Words are shortened; the number two is used instead of to. And the interesting thing is that this new mode of language is understood and accepted as normal by today’s society. I think someone posed the idea in a lecture a few weeks back, that before we know it this type of language is going to be taught in the classroom and this will be all that children learn when it comes to the English language. It’s a scary thought!!