Young people nowadays have less vocabulary than ever before

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A worrying reality arises from de development of the on-line society, we have much more access to any sorts of information than ever before. But the reality is that in every schooling year that goes trough, children and young adults are worsening their communication capacities with every school year that goes by. Generations have today, due to the creation of quick and constant ways of communication, the worst vocabulary variety in history.

Emojis and chats like WhatsApp have become us used to a way of communication based on brief sentences, abbreviations, anglicisms, etc, that have made our young generations loose meaning in communications, and become less skilled to get across their feelings and thoughts trough words. Nowadays social media feeds back into this tendency creating a new and more limited way of communication.

The worrying is that people seem to be less articulate with each passing generation, and students aren’t even proficient in the only language they know. The problem is not slang, (words added to the language) the problem is the removal of words from ones vocabulary which deeply affects language skills and ability to communicate. Current cultural references are photos and short videos that, if they last more than a minute, are no longer interesting. Children don’t read anymore nor do they cultivate themselves culturally. Its the speed generation, even while expressing themselves.

There is no formal study on this issue but we can find innumerable teachers worried abut this reality pretty much in every high school or  university. Such as the ones featured by an article published by ethic.es who say they have lowered their standards at all evaluations having to do with language to adapt to this reality.

People don’t read books anymore and so, are not exposed to a wide vocabulary, they spent most of their time overstimulated by screens and videos, they communicate on the internet trough short expressions relaying mainly on little pictures and emojis to convey tone and emotion because they don’t know hoe to do i trough actual language. The fact that we need those emojis to convey emotion shows our limitation on language abilities.

This must be fought, language is a main factor in the development of a human brain and capacities. If we do not work on this issue, whole societies will end up with little to no capacity to convey meaning.

OTHER SOURCES:

• https://ethic.es/2021/05/lenguaje-jovenes-digital-educacion/