An Examination of

the Online Dialect

Observing the Effects of
Instant Messaging on Language

Linguistics 55AC
December 2, 2003

Michael Hoisie
Matthew Jurka
Nalini Padmanabhan
Grace Yi
Michelle Yong

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Introduction

In recent years, online communication has become increasingly widespread,

overtaking some of the most traditional forms of communication in an amazingly short

span of time. Its new popularity can be attributed to the increasing demand for

convenience and flexibility in communication. In fact, it has brought up numerous

changes in how people communicate and interact socially.

There is not simply one form of online communication. Established forms such as

email and newsgroups, primarily conducted through a series of delayed responses, are

still in use today, although they are becoming associated with more formal contexts. With

the advent of real-time online communication such as instant messenger services and chat

rooms, and the explosive popularity of this method, the way we communicate online has

changed. In 2002, over 139 million instant-message accounts operated in North America,

according to the research firm IDC.

While online communication has obvious benefits, it is limited by the fact that it

must be purely conducted through text. Talking through an online medium may never be

as expressive or efficient as direct conversation. Online communication is “… replete

with its own linguistic conventions. It’s not exactly a language of its own, but it is

certainly a dialect,” according to Marshall Breeding, a library technology officer at

Vanderbilt University. However, with this new online dialect comes a new host of

problems, many of which will be addressed in the upcoming sections.

Methodology

Our primary source of data was a survey that we administered online. The survey

consisted of twenty-one questions designed to give us detailed information about the

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linguistic characteristics of the online conversations people have. The first ten questions

of the survey related to online communication in general, while the remaining eleven

were geared toward instant messaging. The survey was available to the general public

and was advertised through a variety of methods including but not limited to e-mail lists,

newsgroups, and instant messenger profiles. The results of the survey were statistically

analyzed to include both our overall conclusions as well as considerations of the

influence of age and gender on the overall results of the survey. Refer to Appendix A for a

copy of the original survey and complete results.

No single survey, no matter how well designed, can completely eliminate the

problems of statistical bias, and our survey is no exception. Although we had a relatively

large sample size of over 240 respondents, the sample population was not representative

of the general population. Specifically, we had a disproportionately large response from

those aged 18-21. Also, there was somewhat of a bias in regards to gender because

approximately 55% of the respondents were female. However, our statistical analysis was

able to take into consideration the gender bias. Also, the survey was conducted online, so

our results were biased toward those who use the Internet more frequently. Since the

survey was optional, there was also a voluntary response bias among the respondents;

those who responded were more likely to have something to say. Finally, due to the

detachment and lack of accountability among our response pool, it is possible that some

respondents may have inaccurately portrayed their experience with online conversation.

Our secondary source of information was a collection of authentic online

conversations. Only those conversations containing specific linguistic characteristics

were used, with the express consent of its participants.

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 Finally, we consulted existing resources on the topic in order to comprehensively

support our thesis and supplement our own data.

Forms of Online Communication

The core philosophy of online communication is the idea that it is possible to have

cheap, efficient, and convenient communication. The first widely accepted method for

sending messages was email, which was invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Over the

following decades, particularly during the 1990s, the number of emails sent out by

individuals exploded as the popularity of the Internet grew. According to Forrester

Research, email as a form of communication is second only to the land-line phone for

North American consumers. Currently, approximately 107 million individuals are active

email users, according to the research firm Jupiter Media Metrix. Our survey data

supported this conclusion, with nearly 95% of polled individuals using email, the most of

all the choices.

The unique characteristics of email indicate that it is a quicker form of “snail mail.”

Individuals usually invest some time into their emails, especially when writing to

strangers or even acquaintances. When sending an email, one can review the email for

grammatical, spelling, or other errors, making email more formal and organized than

other modes of communication.

However, there is a delay in communication when using email. Not only can it take

minutes to send emails in congested Internet conditions or elaborate spam filters, but,

more significantly, email is not checked constantly by individuals. Usually, in order to

read email messages, a person has to take an active role in checking his or her email and

selecting every individual message. After an email is sent, it is nearly impossible to have

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any sort of quick clarification on the contents of the email. Also, if an individual has

multiple e-mail addresses, he or she may ignore one of those addresses, leaving a stack of

potentially important messages. In other words, you simply cannot have the full benefits

of a human conversation using email.

Usenet, or Internet newsgroups, is a communications medium in which users read

and post textual messages. It is one of the oldest computer network communications

systems still in widespread use, thriving long before the popularization of the Internet.

The format and transmission of Usenet articles is very similar to that of email messages.

However, whereas email is usually used for one-to-one communication, Usenet is a

many-to-many medium. Newsgroups are places where strangers meet to discuss some

specific common topic. For example, there is a specific newsgroup for the philosophy of

artificial intelligence where individuals can post their ideas or questions and wait for

responses from the public. Many terms now in common use on the Internet originated or

were popularized on Usenet. Although the usage of Usenet is declining, the web-based

version of a newgroup, the bulletin board, is among the most popular forms of web-based

communication. According to our survey, over 65% of respondents actively use some

form of newsgroups.

In our increasingly fast-paced world, sometimes email is not fast enough. Instant

messaging has exploded in usage in recent years, especially among teenagers. IRC, or

Internet relay chat, is the predecessor of instant messengers. Instant messaging differs

from email in that conversations happen in realtime. Generally, both parties in the

conversation see each line of text right after it is typed (line-by-line). IRC is geared

towards groups of people talking to each other rather than one-on-one conversation used

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by today’s instant-messaging services. Instant messaging has arisen in parallel in many

places, and each application has its own protocols, sometimes requiring users to run

multiple instant messenger clients.

Our survey indicated instant messaging as the second most frequently used online

communication method, with nearly 78% of the respondents indicating they use one of

the many instant messaging applications. Instant messaging is primarily used by

teenagers and is more informal than other communication methods. The only limit on

speed in this type of communication is how fast a person can type. Thus, individuals tend

to use a large variety of abbreviations and syntactical standards to convey their message.

The main attraction of instant messaging is that one can talk to multiple individuals

simultaneously while keeping the conversations private. While instant messaging is a

significant advancement in online communication, it still has significant problems, many

of which cause a great deal of miscommunication.

Syntax of Online Conversation

As the use of online communication has skyrocketed within the past decade, the

way people talk online had evolved into what can be considered a full-fledged dialect of

English, complete with its own rules of spelling and grammar. The online dialect has

become specially tailored to the needs of its users, who cannot use aspects of more

personal forms of speech such as tone, inflection, and facial expressions to convey their

exact meaning, and must instead rely solely on that which can be typed on a standard

computer keyboard. In addition, due to the fact that typing takes longer than speaking

aloud, people have coined abbreviations for common words and phrases in order to help

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online conversation to flow at a rate comparable to that of face-to-face speaking, and

these have quickly become an integral part of the online dialect.

Perhaps the most celebrated aspect of the online dialect, acronyms and

abbreviations have quickly become a barrier for the online dialect in-group. While

understanding popular acronyms such as lol (laughing out loud), btw (by the way), and

wtf (what the fuck) has become second nature to those who use them frequently, they

baffle others. Despite their relatively recent inception, these abbreviations have already

developed their own connotations. For example, although brb (be right back) and bbl (be

back later) appear the have the same meaning, brb usually signals a short break of only a

few minutes, while bbl implies an extended absence of as long as several hours.

Similarly, haha is used as a generic acknowledgement of humor or expression of laughter,

while hehe implies a giggle or a tongue-in-cheek joke, and mwahahaha and its variations

are used to signal wicked laughter, often used while teasing a person.

Emoticons, or “smilies”, are groups of keyboard keys that represent a facial ex-

pression which have gained prominence as a way of conveying emotion in online conver-

sation. Smilies had relatively humble origins, appearing simply the way they were typed (

:-) , :-( , ;-) , :-D). However, instant messenger services quickly transformed them into an

important aspect of conversation, turning the original keyboard sequence into a shortcut

for a more ornate, graphical face. These days, instant messenger services provide a large

library of elaborate emoticons, and numerous new ones are being created everyday. As

their popularity has grown, they too have acquired specific situational connotations; for

example, a smiling or a winking face is often used to signal a joke or sarcasm, in order to

avoid misunderstanding. Just as people have their own repertoire of facial expressions,

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they also have their own way of using emoticons – while some prefer to use the shortcut

keys to create elaborate emoticons, others enjoy the simpler faces that began the whole

phenomenon.

Another way emotion is communicated through in online conversation is through

emphasis and description of gestures. Consciously or unconsciously, as people speak

aloud in normal conversation, they stress certain words and syllables to express their

emotion and/or prove their point. In online conversation, this emphasis is often expressed

through italics and capitalization of words and syllables. If the syllable being emphasized

is a vowel sound, many online speakers will repeat the letter several times:

A - are you suuuuure?

A - cuz i wouldnt know since i passed out
B - yea i had to carry everyone to bed
A - awwww, that was nice of you

In this example, person A emphasizes “sure” and “aw” to communicate the intended vo-

cal inflection. Some users enclose a stressed word in backslashes or forward-slashes to

avoid the hassle of italicizing it. There are similar techniques in common use for describ-

ing a person’s emotional reaction, the most common of which is enclosing a verb in aster-

isks to describe what the speaker is, or would be, doing at that moment if the conversa-

tion were face-to-face. For example:

A - *picks up paper*
A - *rips paper*
B - *kicks [person A]*
B - *tapes paper back together*

Individuals can potentially hold entire conversations simply using asterisks to indicate

body language in the virtual world.

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 However, not everyone uses the “online jargon” of emoticons, alternate spelling,

and acronyms. According to our survey, more than a third of online speakers understand

these abbreviations and symbols but prefer not to use them. As with oral conversation,

males were significantly more likely to use these nonstandard dialect features than fe-

males; compared to 5.6% of females, more than 10% of males used online jargon very

frequently. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference between age groups; 65% of

our respondents aged 17 or under were frequent users of online jargon, trailed closely by

nearly 60% of those over 30. This might be explained by the fact that although oral social

conversation is usually between people of approximately the same age, this is not neces-

sarily true of online social conversation, in which people often make friends with people

they wouldn’t normally talk to in real life, including people of different generational

groups. By talking with one another, they inevitably influence one another and begin to

speak the same way despite the age difference.

One notable aspect of online conversation is its incredible degree of informality.

There are several reasons for this, the most important of which is the simple fact that

instant messenger and chat are often used in informal and casual contexts, unlike email,

which has become a crucial part of business in the modern world. It is also true that

informal conversation is less mentally taxing, and often (but not always) more concise

than formal conversation, which enables users to save time by talking informally. In

addition, until recently, instant messaging has been largely restricted to teenagers and

young adults, a social group known for its informality in all forms of communication.

The informality of online conversation shows itself in many ways, the most

readily noticeable of which is the near-total absence of capitalization and punctuation,

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two aspects of writing that, interestingly, have no manifestation in oral communication.

In fact, capitalization and punctuation have acquired new functions in online

conversation. Capitalization is often used for emphasis or as part of official acronyms,

such as AP or FBI. Punctuation is often used independently of words as an abbreviation,

such as “!!”, which signals surprise and emphasis, and “?”, which indicates confusion.

Periods are very rarely used, and commas appear in few contexts other than lists. Another

aspect the casual nature of online conversation is the relative leniency in terms of

spelling; according to our survey, less than 50% of online speakers regularly check their

spelling and grammar when talking online. Here is a typical example of the informality of

the online dialect:

A - i got it from al b4 i went to schol

B - ah ic
A - do u DL anything

Person A uses abbreviations for “before” (b4) and “download” (DL) to avoid typing out

the full words. Similarly, person B replaces “I see” with “ic.” Additionally, there is very

little attention to spelling in this conversation, as person A misspells both “school” and

“anything.” Neither of the two participants in the conversation use any grammatical

standards for capitalization and punctuation. Most notably, person A fails to put a

question after the last statement, which could confuse some individuals.

The problem of typographical errors is so common that a protocol has arisen to

acknowledge and correct these mistakes, signaled by an asterisk followed by the correct

spelling of the misspelled word. For example:

A - psh. there are no witnessed

A - *witnesses

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People can quickly correct themselves by simply using this syntactical standard. Another

easily noticeable phenomenon of online conversation is the virtual absence of complete

sentences and clauses. This can be partially explained by the fact that, in contrast to email

and postal mail, in which each person’s turn to speak is relatively long and consists of up

to several paragraphs, instant messaging and oral conversation involves much shorter

durations of each person’s holding the floor. But there is more to the story; although oral

communication often exhibits these high turnover rates, online conversation employs it to

a much higher extent, with speakers’ statements sometimes consisting of only a single

word. The rest of the explanation can be found in the time-saving tendency of online

speakers – if a single word or phrase can get the message across, speakers won’t bother to

add unnecessary words to make the statement grammatically correct.

Essentially, the unique features of the online dialect have two characteristics in

common. First of all, they are tailored to the special nature of online conversation, the

fact that the conversation is online and not face-to-face. Secondly, they are as typed as

simply as they can be, in order to be quick to write and understand. These self-imposed

requirements of online speakers have caused the creation of a dialect that is innovative

and vibrant, developing new and interesting rules and traits everyday as it becomes more

suited to its ever-changing purpose.

Misunderstanding

When was the last time you have had a ‘perfect’ online

conversation – one with perfect spelling, grammar, and punctuation,

and with every idea communicated and understood flawlessly? Such

errorless online conversations are rare occurrences. By observing

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transcripts of online conversations, communication flaws can be

spotted without difficulty.

There are several types of communication flaws. For example,

delays in conversation or non-response by one participant can often

cause misunderstanding. In most circumstances, these delays are

caused by either network lag or one converser’s being otherwise

occupied. According to our survey, over 95% of people are engaged in

other activities while talking on the Internet. The most common

activities are surfing the web, working, and listening to music.

Although activities like listening to music do not require full attention,

activities like homework can cause usually lead to significant delays in

one’s response time. For example:

(16:09:16) A - so when are you going to come back here

(16:09:46) B - winter
(16:13:52) A - so you'll come home for christmas
(16:14:47) A - do y'all have any holidays before that, that you
might come home for?
(16:16:35) A - what are you doing that has you so preoccupied?
or do you just not want to answer my questions?
(16:18:23) A - Mike? are you still there?
(16:53:49) A logged out.

In this example, person A waited nearly 10 minutes for a response.

Person B expressed the concern that person A was avoiding her

questions. According to our survey, nearly 32% of people feel that non-

response is either awkward or intentional. When over 95% of people

are engaged in other activities online, it would seem likely that there

are many instances of misunderstanding associated with delays or

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non-response. Although misunderstanding associated with delays is

usually non-problematic, problems may arise when two conversers are

dealing with a sensitive topic. Any sort of delayed response can be

interpreted the wrong way:

(21:15:09) A - Fuck... how did you go about debugging your

enigma?
(23:40:27) A logged out.

In this example, Person A is clearly in need of help and Person B is not

responding. Person B can conceivably interpret Person A’s action as

selfish due his unwillingness to help. Most likely, however, Person B is

simply otherwise occupied.

A ‘wrong window’ situation occurs when someone sends a

message to the wrong person. Messages sent in this situation are

usually out of context. This happens most often when someone’s

conversation is interrupted by an incoming message, and the person

does not confirm the receiver when sending out his next message. For

instance:

(23:51:05) A - hey what time are you guys lifting tomorrow?

(23:51:05) B - e
(23:51:11) B - oh
(23:51:14) B - 8-10
(23:51:15) B - i think

In this case, one of person B’s conversations was interrupted by person

A’s question. The unintentional “e” was written because person B was

finishing a word ending with the letter “e” in another conversation

when person A's window popped up. As a result, person B typed the

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“e” in person A's window and hit enter. In this particular conversation,

there was little or no confusion caused by the mistake. However, this

type of error can have a significant impact if full sentences are sent to

the wrong person or if the topic is more sensitive.

Another problem in instant messenger conversations could be

described as “stacking.” Many different topics may be brought up

during a conversation, and some of these topics are never actually

resolved. While browsing transcripts of online conversations, such

orphan topics are almost always spotted:

(00:08:40) A: hey
(00:09:01) B: yo
(00:09:07) B: whats up
(00:09:21) A: nm, went to big game and marched
(00:09:24) A: what are you doing?
(00:10:31) B: i was at the game
(00:10:34) B: it was lots of fun
(00:10:37) A: o yeah
(00:10:46) B: i wanted to rush
(00:10:48) B: but
(00:10:50) A: sorry about not getting back to you about a
ticket
(00:10:53) A: haha
(00:10:56) A: stupid coppers
(00:10:57) B: too many cops
(00:11:03) A: with their riot gear
(00:11:17) B: yeah
(00:11:20) A: --notice that they came immediately to the
berkeley student section
(00:11:21) B: it was lame

In this short excerpt, the three orphan topics are put in bold text. Some

confusion can occur when such an orphan topic is addressed at a later

point in the conversation. Such messages are usually out of context

and create confusion.

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 Another potential point of misunderstanding occurs when a

person needs to communicate one long message and sends it in

fragments. For instance:

(00:26:49) A: and if i ever find out who it is

(00:26:57) B: uh oh
(00:27:01) A: i'd personally take the initiative
(00:27:14) A: to beat his ass with a crowbar

Instead of combining all three fragments, person A chooses to send

them individually, which has several advantages. For instance, sending

a message in fragments may avoid the delay of typing one long

message. Also, it makes the messages more flexible – if a person isn’t

exactly sure what he is going to say, he can invent the message as he

goes. This method of communicating may lead to confusion when the

message is left fragmented.

The most evident form of misunderstanding is an unintended

interpretation of a message. For instance:

(22:56:06) A: do you not have a microphone

(22:56:16) B: nope
(22:56:34) A: damn you
(22:56:36) B: i can't do voice chat
(22:56:43) A: that sucks
(22:56:57) A: thats what i am doing now with kristan
(22:57:30) B: thats fucking amazing
(22:57:34) B: seriously
(22:57:53) A: ok if you are going to be a ass
(22:59:59) B: im playing around

In this case person B’s response was purely sarcastic. However it was

interpreted as something more than that. This is the situation where

some sort of emoticon may have been useful. It can be used to

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suggest that a potentially offensive statement was made as a playful

jest.

Away Messages and Screennames

Each method of online communication presents a specific technological interface

that affects communication in its own way. Much like answering machines for

telephones, instant messaging provides the option of placing a message for others to view

when an individual is not available to chat. One implication of this is that a person can

have a one-sided conversation with another person's away message. This is also possible

to do with a telephone answering machine, but it is significantly easier online because the

conversation is more detached. Additionally, others may simply keep track of

communicants without any direct conversation. Simply by observing a person’s away

message, one can determine what he or she is doing, depending on how specific that

person makes his or her away messages. This adds to the detached nature of Internet

conversation. Screennames also provide a form of communication by allowing others to

deduce information about various individuals on the Internet. Generally, people create

screennames based upon their personal characteristics, self-image, or their name. Thus,

away messages and screennames are essential to a comprehensive linguistic analysis of

online communication.

Away messages allow people to communicate their activity throughout the day

without directly messaging anyone. An away message can be thought of as a description

of the body language of a person: an individual can be busy doing some specific task or

not be present at all. The detachment of the human body in online communication

requires people to describe their current physical state using words. This creates a

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multitude of opportunities for miscommunication, as individuals can accidentally or even

intentionally put up inaccurate away messages. Statistics provide a more lucid illustration

of the linguistic functions of the away message. As indicated in our survey, a significant

percentage of individuals do not put up thoughtful away messages. Out of 240

respondents, a mere ten percent indicated that they place very accurate away messages,

which allow very little misinterpretation. Only 48.2% usually place a thoughtful away

message, while the remaining individuals indicated that they don't have any accurate

away messages at all. Age group also significantly affects the dialectical quality of online

communication. Approximately 66% of online communicants aged eighteen to twenty-

one said that they usually display a thoughtful away message. 13% of this age group

indicated that they almost always write an accurate away message. Those aged seventeen

and under are closely matched with the eighteen to twenty-one age group percentage,

with 60% usually placing a precise away message. Only 5% of individuals aged

seventeen and under consistently place an accurate away message for people to read. The

twenty-one to twenty-five age group is less motivated to put a thoughtful away message.

None of those who took the survey always put an accurate away message, while a mere

third of them usually write an away message that accurately portrays their whereabouts.

While online communication is becoming increasingly popular, it will still be unfamiliar

for older generations for decades to come. Thus college level students are the most able

to communicate effectively online because they take full advantage of the linguistic

usefulness of away messages.

Screennames also considerably affect the linguistic value of online

communication. If desired, a screenname allows individuals to mask their true identity

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because it is not necessary to use one’s name. The screenname creates an online identity

that can be utilized for negative or deceptive purposes. The survey, however, indicated

that 35.9% of 240 online communicants base their screenname on their real name. This is

not an overwhelming percentage when considering that a close 27.6% based their

screenname on something personal or intrinsic. Additionally, 19.4% said that their

screenname was based on some facts or characteristics about themselves and 17% said

their screenname was based on something that sounds cool or pretty. These patterns are

relatively consistent across the gender barrier and among various age groups. In general,

it can be deduced that screennames represent how individuals see themselves. For

example, the screenname “RomanFarjardoMD” is not that of a medical doctor, but a

college student attending his first year at the University of California, San Diego. It is

quite apparent that this individual is not a medical doctor, but his screenname is

indicative of the way he views himself in his future, and the way he prefers others to view

him. This use of a screenname as a virtual face to the world is visible in numerous

screennames: krazyazn19, calculus dude, krrazimeeh, starcutie637, ladeewacki, and

funni11569. Accordingly, screennames are very crucial in contributing to online

communication. A screenname is a unique way of communicating a personality or

characteristic, even without directly chatting with another person.

Social Patterns Online

As with any new form of communication, the instant messenger medium has

evolved a unique set of social behaviors as well as its own dialect. Users chat with an in-

visible screen barring sound, sight, and touch from other users, yet the system bridges

distant areas and even different time zones. Instant messaging has the potential to alien-

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ate and impersonalize people or to equalize the social playing field by eliminating status

symbols such as dress, looks, and cliques. The user decides.

Apparently, the majority of those surveyed have chosen to chat with people they

probably would be uncomfortable speaking with in person or perhaps on the phone. Ac-

cording to our survey, 68% of people who use an instant messenger have found them-

selves talking to people they normally would not talk to or don’t know. Although screen

names sometimes imply certain traits about their owners, instant messaging seems to re-

move prejudice, whether based on ethnicity, social status, or other factors, from human

relations, since a person must be judged solely on the words and symbols he or she types.

Wit, eloquence, and enough of a gift with words to convey an attractive character are

prized talents online. In fact, for the aforementioned question, over a quarter of the re-

sponses were for choice C, “…We’re all just personalities on the internet.”

With instant messaging, each conversation is private, meaning users cannot know

the content of the dialogue or who is talking to whom. Peer pressure is essentially

nonexistent. Furthermore, the ability to speak with anyone around the world allows users

to get to know people they may never have a chance to meet in real life. With other

mediums, a person would be limited to one conversation at a time, which he or she would

probably reserve for extremely close friends. There is no necessity to “prioritize”

bonding time with the instant messenger. Since it allows multiple conversations to occur

simultaneously, users can maximize their socializing and branch out from their crowd of

close friends to those on the fringe. In fact, 70% take advantage of this property by

having more than one window open a time.

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 Ignoring someone who lacks the tone and pitch to protest, eyes to glare, and a

body from which to walk away seems just too easy. Even the obnoxious “duh-dunk” of

windows popping up and responses registering can be muted on a computer. Users seem

to understand this phenomenon, as 67% reported a non-response from someone else to

signify nothing personal but that “[he or she is] just busy”, agreeing that “[they] don’t

really care”. In addition, 96% of people said they “usually do something else while talk-

ing on the Internet”, which explains why being “busy” is a standard assumption about on-

line silences. Thus online conversations are naturally elongated due to typing time (versus

much faster speaking time) and the wide acceptance that people may be doing other tasks

while chatting.

When people are assessed by their words alone instead of appearance or company,

their logical reaction would be to carefully monitor their online “speech”. One might

even say the amount of thought given to appearances is, when online, employed else-

where to create better comments. The convention of a slower response time aids this

trend. After all, the spontaneity of a real conversation usually doesn’t guarantee the

sharpest retorts or the cleverest remarks. In other words, people have more control in de-

veloping their personalities online. This may explain the fact that, when asked, 85% of

people surveyed had recognized someone behaving differently online than in person. Ex-

actly how do people “act” differently online? Obviously, in some way, their language

patterns have changed slightly, whether in syntax, loquaciousness or lack thereof, or top-

ical content – changes that are shaped by the structure of instant messaging.

However, the absence of a face, voice, and body in a conversation can sometimes

be negative. While more social and conversational freedom is an effect, deception is also

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much easier to accomplish. 55% of those questioned admitted that they had lied or pre-

tended to be someone else while online. While 77% of the liars said their dishonest activ-

ities were “just for fun”, this trend seriously undermines the trustworthiness of instant

messaging. As of now, online identities are difficult to verify, which means online con-

versations will remain for informal use only, leaving email to handle important business

communications.

While trust appears to be an issue in online exchanges, 84% of users reported be-

ing “more open to talking about personal or taboo subjects while online”. This can be at-

tributed to the fact that any awkwardness in referring to such topics is difficult to mask in

person, yet easy to hide online. However, 17% selected the choice C, “ah whatever it’s

not real life so it doesn’t matter”, which indicates a different perception toward online

conversations than face-to-face ones. It seems that whatever happens online minimally

affects real life relations for these people. Also, if people are talking to those outside

their social circle or perhaps others they have never met in person, then their secrets are

somewhat “safe” in that the confidantes are excluded from that specific social group and

from exposing secrets credibly. In other words, the confidantes cannot act on the know-

ledge they gain.

Complex social behaviors are shaped by the new dialect of instant messaging.

Benefits such as more openness, the ability to talk to others concurrently, and the de-

crease of social pressures and prejudices may lead others, especially those of the older

crowd, to embrace this new form of communication: instant messaging.

Conclusion

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 As the Internet continues to grow more and more prevalent in our society, it is

beginning to influence more than just the online realm of our day-to-day lives, affecting

even the way we communicate offline. Email is quickly becoming a substitute for

traditional postal mail, and instant messenger and chat room services are swiftly

replacing even the ubiquitous telephone. As online communication progresses, we must

be wary of the threat of miscommunication, a problem that will likely be addressed by

future technological advances. With the growing importance of online conversation and

its blossoming dialect, any modern comprehensive study of language will require a

deeper, more detailed examination of the increasingly important effects of the online

environment on our language.

22
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