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Essay on The Influence of IM on Society

Decent Essays

The Influence of IM on Society

Before I explore how a term like cyberculture has became a phenomena, I must first explain what cyberculture is. According to wordreference.com, cyberculture is the culture that emerges from the use of computers for communication and entertainment and business. When asked to do this research on communication and the changes society has gone through as a result of something technological, the first thing I thought of was instant messaging. In an article, Internet jargon, acronyms enter English language, Michelle Talsma sites Andrew Chang’s definition of IM language as, “A collection of abbreviations, acronyms, and phonetic replacements make up a kind of Internet shorthand text that has been dubbed …show more content…

With the option of instant messaging services incorporated into cell phones, people can talk on IM from their phones without disturbing people with their voices.

Nonverbal communication is a form of communication that is always communicating, even when one isn’t speaking. An example of nonverbal communication is when one is talking or listening one might smile, indicating they are happy with what was communicated or one might yawn indicating one is bored or not interested with the topic of conversation. Without the luxury of seeing each other in cyberspace, nonverbal cues are not known. Since IM has become popular everything has become abbreviated, even ones emotion and nonverbal cues. IM users have become aware of the distance associated with cyber communication. To compensate for the distance users have created a way to make IM more personal. Examples of emotion and nonverbal cues were created to fill the communication gaps, examples are: :) - I'm happy, :( - I'm sad , :S - I have mixed feelings, 8) - I'm wide awake, :0 - I'm surprised, (:0 - I'm very surprised, :p - Sticking out the tongue, :9 – Yummy, :/ - Hmmm, :v – I’m chatting. Aside from the written emotions many IM services offer default almost cartoon like emotions. Examples of these are written in HTML code and offer an abundance of colorful emotions.

As a result of the World Wide Web and instant messaging, culture itself is changing. The influence of the World Wide Web and IM has been

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