Social Media Communication Quirks

While the Internet 2.0 has greatly increased a sense of feeling connected with others on the World Wide Web, this phenomenon has caused some quirks in communications. 

Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake satirized the proliferation of hashtags through a reductio ad absurdum video using the hagtags in real life dialogues.

Since short written exchanges can be misconstrued without facial cues, many internet interlocutors choose to use emoticons.   To supplement these non-verbal cues,  entrepreneurs Paul and Douglas J. Sak  patented and sought to market new punctuation to clarify things-- the Sarcmark.






Free spirits chafed at profiting from punctuation.  A mock website "Open Sarcasm" sought to blacklist the SarcMark in favor of the temherte slaq (the inverted exclamation point) with a tongue in cheek tag line: "Sarcasmists of the World Unite!" 


But another reason that  the SarcMark has failed to catch on was the price for being smarmy.  The grammatical genius initially priced his punctuation at $1.99 for lifetime use, whereas typing ;-) was just three keystrokes and had no cost.  Brilliant!  


Communication has changed in the Internet Age.  Now, sending e-mails are too long for the digerati and may be considered passé.  Traditional types often have difficulty in adjusting to sharing in 140 characters or less.  

Short form social media like Twitter will not be the be all and end all in communicating complex thought.  But it can attract eyeballs to see something more.

h/t: Mike Keefe