Thumbspeak by: Louis Menand

The current trends in new media communication are often debated as to whether or not they will have a negative effect on the future of academic writing. Many people argue that the use of shorthand terms such as “lol” and “g2g” is somehow going to make people start to think that that is the way we spell those words. They also think that use of these terms will somehow make humans as a whole regress into alliteration. To me such an idea is just plain ridiculous. The people that believe these things are the same as the people that were afraid of the use of the automobile when it first came out. New technology and ways of communication means change. And most people are afraid of change so they label it as something bad. After reading the article “Thumbspeak” by: Louis Menand my opinion on what new media trends will do to the future of academic writing remains unchanged. My opinion is that the new media trends won’t really have much of an effect at all on the future of academic writing. As David Crystal says in the article “a trillion text messages appear as no more than a few ripples on the surface of the sea of language.” Texting and instant messaging won’t really have a negative or positive impact on future writing because slang and the use of shorthand has been around for centuries. Some facts that Louis Menand brings up in this article to back up my standpoint are “ “Luv” for “love” dates from 1898; “thanx” was first used in 1936.” (Menand Thumbspeak)