Why do we speak differently on the internet?

When talking to people online, (specifically online text not videos) and mostly on social media sites such as Facebook or twitter, or talking allowed with tweets and statuses, many of us take up a different way of speaking to how we do in real life. Obviously you can't properly write they way you speak because of barriers such as there isn't really a visible tone to a written word, unless marked out by punctuation like an exclamation mark to indicate a raise of tone (shouting) or a maybe a question mark with could imply an inquisitive, stretched tone (a question). People also decide to spell words differently or abbreviate them or just use different words altogether as supposed to what they should in person. Let's delve deeper into this...

A key difference between talking online and in real life is that you aren't physically there on the internet, social networks are a place of freedom, we're free to say what we think and like, just as Facebook asks "What's on your mind" each time you log in. Someone may be ultra-shy in real life but posts on Facebook/twitter a hell of a lot, this it's because it's their free space to say what they like without the pressure and constant judging that real life can bring. These people may seem completely differently online, they sound confident and aren't scared to say 

what they feel and that's because these sites create the effect that people have something to 'hide behind'.

A common thing we see in online text is abbreviations or clippings of words, one of the most common examples of this being the word 'U' as in 'You'. There are several reasons that people use this in online speech, an obvious one being that it's quicker to type assuming the receivers actually know that it's supposed to be 'You' which is totally dependent on the context – this is basically the lazy route. This clipping comes around from the fact that the word 'You' and the letter 'U' are both pronounced and said in the same way, thus, if the U's capitalized in a sentence (It RARELY is nowadays) then it should still sound the same e.g. "How are U?".  Another reason people clip and abbreviate words is simply because they can providing it still makes sense, it's also more of a casual thing and something you say to your friends (if you're someone who uses 'U' in this way, which I for one am not). There are also examples we can look at where the words are put together and turned into an acronym, using clipped words in them, such as 'WUU2' (What U U 2), meaning What are you up to. The reasons behind this are similar to the last being it's a lot quicker to type 'WUU2" than the full sentence.

I may have not gone over EVERYTHING as there's tonnes of reasons why someone speaks differently online, whether that be the way the type and spell the actual words or the amount they say or even how they act. The internet can be another world to some people to get away and become someone different and people sure do treat it that way 'wen they spell lyk dis'.

                                                                                                                                                       By Luke Putland.