The Impact of Social Media and Computer-Mediated Communication on the Spelling and Orthography of English

Abstract

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and social networking sites have transformed the conditions under which written English is produced, circulated, and interpreted. This paper examines how these environments influence English spelling and orthography, with particular attention to Netspeak and Facebook-speak. It also considers whether non-standard digital forms should be treated primarily as evidence of linguistic deterioration or as systematic resources adapted to the communicative demands of online interaction. The study adopts a qualitative, literature-based analytical design. It synthesizes historical accounts of English spelling with findings from previous studies of online language, including research on Facebook writing, capitalization on Twitter, and the relationship between social networking practices and students' academic writing. The analysis identifies recurrent digital orthographic features such as abbreviations and acronyms, non-standard spellings, contractions, omitted or repeated punctuation, unconventional capitalization, emoticons, hashtags, and reduplicated letters. Evidence reviewed from earlier studies suggests that some of these features may transfer into students' academic writing, particularly when genre boundaries are weak; however, the same features also perform meaningful functions related to speed, brevity, prosody, stance, emphasis, and social identity. The paper concludes that CMC does not simply damage English spelling. Rather, it creates a context in which standard and non-standard orthographic practices coexist. Educational responses should therefore emphasize register awareness and the ability to distinguish informal digital writing from formal academic writing, rather than treating digital language as inherently deficient.