Editing Online chat (section)

== Social criticism ==
Criticism of online chatting and [[text messaging]] include concern that they replace proper English with [[shorthand]] or with an almost completely new hybrid language.<ref name="UofPenn-Zimmer" /><ref name="UofPenn-Liberman" /><ref name="UofPenn-Zwicky" />

Writing is changing as it takes on some of the functions and features of speech. Internet [[chat room]]s and rapid real-time [[teleconferencing]] allow users to interact with whoever happens to coexist in [[cyberspace]]. These virtual interactions involve us in 'talking' more freely and more widely than ever before.<ref name="Merchant" /> With chatrooms replacing multiple face-to-face conversations, it is necessary to be able to have quick conversation as if the person were present, so some learn to [[Words per minute|type as quickly]] as they would normally speak. Some critics{{Who|date=May 2010}} are wary that this casual form of speech is being used so much that it will slowly take over common grammar; however, such a change has yet to be seen.

With the increasing population of online chatrooms there has been a massive growth<ref name="Guardian-2009.06.10" /> of new words created or [[Internet slang|slang words]], a number of them documented on the website [[Urban Dictionary]]. [[Sven Birkerts]] wrote:<blockquote>
"as new electronic modes of communication provoke similar anxieties amongst critics who express concern that young people are at risk, endangered by a rising tide of information over which the traditional controls of print media and the guardians of knowledge have no control on it".<ref name="Birkerts" /></blockquote>

In Guy Merchant's journal article Teenagers in Cyberspace: An Investigation of Language Use and Language Change in Internet Chatrooms; Merchant says<blockquote>
"that teenagers and young people are in the leading the movement of change as they take advantage of the possibilities of digital technology, drastically changing the face of literacy in a variety of media through their uses of mobile phone text messages, e-mails, web-pages and on-line chatrooms. This new literacy develops skills that may well be important to the labor market but are currently viewed with suspicion in the media and by educationalists.<ref name="Merchant" /></blockquote>  Merchant also says "Younger people tend to be more adaptable than other sectors of society and, in general, quicker to adapt to new technology. To some extent they are the innovators, the forces of change in the new communication landscape."<ref name="Merchant" /> In this article he is saying that young people are merely adapting to what they were given.