Language and Technology

Technology is causing the regression of the English language

As technology continues to advance, the devleopment of the English language seems to be struggling to compete with this rate of progression.
One of the worst effects of these technological advancements is that as information can now be accessed much faster, simply by clicking a few buttons, many peoples' attention spans have now grown shorter. Whilst this may not have a direct eaffect on th eEnglish language; childrens' shortened attention spans are causing them to pay less attention in school and hterefore be less advance with their vocabulary and all round communication skills.
However; texting and social media are not exclusively used by the youger generations, so how has technology been effecting adults? It seems not to have effected them at all. Statistics show that adults actually text more than teenagers do and with texting being the most common use of technology, it could be said that this may not be the regression of the English language but that the language is evolcing in order to adapt to these modern times. An example of the English language adapting to these technological advancements is what's now known as 'text speak'. This new and fairly common form of language uses many abbreviations such as: 'tbh' which means 'to be honest' and 'tomoz' meaning 'tomorrow'.
There are two sides to the argument in regards to whether 'text speak' is specifically a positive or negative thing. I believe that it is both. On one side of the argument, 'text speak' is becoming persistently more common as people continue to communicate less verbally thus people's vocabulary is becoming niche, which could result in much of the English language being forgotten and somewhat archaic. On the other side; a common cristicism of technology along with the creation of 'text speak' is that it encourages poor spelling and grammar. This simply isn't true. Why? In the words of David Crystal: "you have to know a letter is contained within a word, in order to remove it."
Many of technology's criticisms (in regards to language) can be disproven through research into the topic, as many concerns are myths. However, there are some technological hinderences of language which can not be denied although there may be a positive counterpart for the criticism.
So what is one of the technological advancements which cannot deny its negative effects on the English language? It's none other than mankind's new best fried; autopredict. While this mobile phone feature often helps the majority of people when they are struggling to communicate with their desired words, it can also lead to miscommunication. As our technology supplies new lexis (when it feels the context is appropriate) but does not provide the word's definition, this can often lead to people misusing these newly found words due to lack of understanding. But of course this isn't always the case, as fast and easy access to e.g. internet articles encourages the expansion of people's vocabularies; as they'll read a new word and simply 'google' its definition in order to further their knowledge.
In conclusion; i find that technology is not guilty of causing 'the regression of the English language' as although it does occassionally create communication problems, it also typically provides a solution.