There's a saying: “The tongue will take you to Kyiv.” Modern language can take you even to another continent, instantly. And this has become possible thanks to breakthroughs in high technology: the internet and telephony.
While information used to be passed on exclusively by word of mouth, today's fast-paced lifestyle often leaves no room for that. We're constantly running, holding our phones to our ears, trying to buy something, sell something, or simply get somewhere quickly—we always have to be somewhere urgently. Something is constantly vibrating in our pockets, beeping on our phones, grumbling on the TV, groaning on our ICQ messages, ringing in our emails, or howling in our cars. We're surrounded by gadgets that won't let us out of their thrall.
People keep their mouths shut, paychecks are deposited on cards, payments are made online or at ATMs, even money is becoming increasingly virtualized, becoming electronic. And there's a strong urge to buy a car as soon as possible to minimize the stifling interactions with other Homo sapiens on public transportation.
Have you ever noticed how young people travel on public transport?
This is especially evident in the Moscow metro. Eyes are blank or staring at a book, ears are tightly plugged with music from a player, fingers are typing text messages, or eyes are simply closed, pretending to sleep. And next to them is a beautiful girl or guy in the same detached state, and it's possible that both of them are eager to get online and continue their acquaintance with a wonderful fairy (or a cool macho man), and quite possibly with the one (or guy) standing next to them.
Less and less time is spent on simple face-to-face conversation. Some people manage to set up several computers at home, connect them to a network, access the internet simultaneously, and communicate via ICQ, sending each other interesting links.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that specializations and professions are often so narrowly focused, and life goals so individualized, that people find it difficult to find common ground. There's very little communal living and being, as was once the custom in the village, where people were united by common tasks and their shared accomplishment (the most striking example is haymaking time, when all able-bodied villagers would head out to the fields with pitchforks and scythes). Megacities are consuming us with their technogenic protoplasm, forcing us to talk less and less and distance ourselves from one another.
While there used to be grocery markets where people were forced to interact while shopping, they're increasingly being replaced by hyper-super-mega-centers, where interaction revolves around shelves of products, price tags, and cashiers looking flustered by the sheer volume of customers. We even order groceries online, exchanging a single word with the courier, “Delivery,” and “Thank you.” It's hard to imagine that just a hundred years ago, the center of information was a gathering at a well, where people would arrive precisely on time to catch the daily news.
What do the news programs encourage? “Visit our website,” “Send us an SMS with a number to support this or that,” “Leave your opinion on our forum.” More and more news programs are accompanied by a running information line at the bottom, diverting attention from the face of the generally pleasant announcer to the faceless, rushing letters and numbers.
This dominance of virtual communication, a kind of “withdrawal” of language into itself due to the increasing attractiveness of Internet spaces, raises serious concerns about the consequences of abandoning verbal communication.
On one popular resource (Klerk.Ru), in the news section, we read: “Linguists from around the world have gathered aboard the comfortable ship “Mikhail Svetlov” to discuss the dangers of language extinction in the face of the advent of the Internet. … The meeting of scientists is being held under the auspices of UNESCO, with representatives from dozens of countries participating.
Today, 400 languages are used online, but hundreds more lack access to cyberspace. Scientists estimate that by the end of the 21st century, no more than 10% of the world's existing languages will remain if measures are not taken to preserve them.
It turns out that in the process of “retreating” into cyberspace, some languages are simply lost, and given the globalization of internet technologies, they are unlikely to have a chance to survive or gain a foothold in this world. Various political decisions, such as when several peoples unite under a single language, which then becomes the “national” language, and a number of other factors, contribute to this disappearance. Among them is the massive onslaught of the latest internet technologies, comparable in its impact to colonization, which, incidentally, played a huge role in the disappearance of a significant number of languages.
The emergence of ever-increasing amounts of telecommunications is having a powerful transformative effect on lifestyles and, consequently, on linguistic communication. ICQ, for example, allows you to simultaneously correspond with an unlimited number of friends and acquaintances from virtually any distance. On the one hand, this is great, because in everyday life, it's not easy to gather even 3, 5, or 7 people. But on the other hand, online communication so quickly becomes addictive that it becomes part of your life, changing even your thought patterns from “let's meet tomorrow and chat” to “I'll text Katya tomorrow to tell her how it went…”
Interestingly, only 10% of internet users use it to search for information; the rest come online for social interaction. Yet, the internet was originally conceived by the American intelligence system as a repository of classified information. Today's users go online to play games, enter into virtual marriages, find a business partner or simply find the information they need, download a diploma, essay, or term paper, or simply because they're bored at home and even more so at work.
How could the World Wide Web be more appealing than traditional “language” communication? What makes people prefer silent online conversation to live dialogue?
Oddly enough, there are a vast number of options—to each their own, as they say. Here are a few of the most typical examples:
1. Chat. We go there to find and chat with friends, classmates, fellow students, cellmates, and those we've been with on VKontakte. And sometimes we reach the point of madness in such conversations. We'd rather text or email a friend who lives 15 minutes away than meet and thoroughly discuss three main topics: “all men are bastards,” nothing to wear, and other things.
2. Become a member of a group. Often, in everyday life, people can't fit into any group; they're misunderstood, unwelcome, and few real communities exist, compared to the vastness of cyberspace. Although the computer world also has its own laws, hierarchy, communities, and language, it's fairly easy to join, and just as easy—and importantly, without consequences—to leave. If something doesn't work out, if someone offends you, you close the page and forget about it.
3. Gaining power. Online, we're all under surveillance (thankfully not under Mueller's thumb). Any online user can boycott, ban, ignore, or blacklist another, often without explanation. In real life, it's not always possible to delete someone you don't like, but online, anyone can do it, and even a math professor can get a beating from an average schoolchild. It's very easy to gain power here by becoming a moderator or site administrator and showing anger or mercy to visitors, sometimes simply depending on your mood.
4. Try something forbidden. Many people enjoy the impunity that anonymity provides, as the internet is full of fictional characters. In the worst-case scenario, your IP will be blocked, but if it's dynamic, that's not a big deal; it'll be a new one the next time you log in. Then you can register again and have fun.
5. To be liked (by others or yourself). When choosing an avatar or self-image, many people involuntarily begin to associate themselves with this character, feeling more successful and relaxed. Their behavior automatically aligns with the image, creating a sense of their own beauty and irresistibility.
6. Feel important. Most websites and forums pre-scribe how many mythical points, scores, messages, or whatever else you need to earn to become cool and build a sort of virtual career, earning a new rank or status. This motivates you to actively “sail the vastness of the world's oceans.” Incidentally, it's much more effective than your boss's pompous speeches about a bright future that can only be built by your overtime, unpaid work.
7. Start a new life. Lukyanenko created the most astonishing virtual society in his trilogy “Labyrinth of Reflections,” “False Mirrors,” and “Transparent Stained Glass.” His Deeptown is an entire city, highly realistic, where each person has their own virtual prototype, imbued with desired traits and qualities. However, over time, these images begin to take on an uncontrollable life. Most people cannot exit the game on their own; a timer is required to pull them out of their sweet dream state. Only divers have the ability to interrupt the flight of these images at will.
And these are far from all the reasons that plunge savvy city dwellers deeper and deeper into the abyss of virtual communication. The vast number of online communication platforms (forums, email, chat, ICQ, websites, clubs, virtual cities, etc.) accustom people to interacting with a monitor. Even when they make eye contact, many can barely even converse properly. They've become so unaccustomed to simultaneously speaking and seeing their partner: they confuse words, blush, turn pale, ramble nonsense, or simply remain silent.
Perhaps one of the most vicious drains on linguistic communication is computer games, most of which act magnetically, sucking in hapless infantile creatures with their viscous substance, unable to free themselves from the sticky goo. What's the point of language when fingers confidently grip the trigger and frantically spin it in all directions? And as soon as one game becomes boring, three new ones appear to keep the player online. However, computer games are mostly entertainment for juvenile bodies; grown-ups play other games. They're running a business. True, they're also online and silently.
And everything would be fine, except that instead of names, there are nicknames, emotions are iconized by replacing words with appropriate emojis, plus autism (withdrawal, isolation), a switch to slang and shortened phrases because they're too lazy to type them out in full, a basic loss of communication skills and the ability to judge a person's reaction by external signs. Add to this physical weakness, muscle atrophy, spinal curvature, red eyes, and fingers flattened from constantly typing. All this can be summed up in one word: internet addiction.
Let's take a short test and answer a few simple questions:
1. Do you think about the Internet and online services when you are not connected?
2. Do you need to increase the time you spend online to feel comfortable?
3. Do you think you can’t do without the Internet?
4. Do you feel anxious and irritable when your use of computer networks is limited or stopped?
5. Do you use the Internet to cope with feelings such as helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression?
6. Do you lie to family and friends that you spend less time online than you actually do?
7. Do you find yourself staying online longer than you originally planned?
8. Do you experience depression, bad mood and irritability when away from the Internet?
9. Do you continue to go online even when it harms your financial situation?
10. Is there a risk of losing important connections, work, education, or damaging your career due to NOT using the Internet?
If you answered honestly, like me, then you will have at least 1-2 positive answers, and the more there are, the higher the degree of dependence.
In a number of countries, internet addiction is treated with obsessive zeal, considered the AIDS of the 21st century and equated with alcoholism and drug addiction. For example, in Finland, young men with the addiction receive a deferment from military service, while in China, compulsory treatment is used, primarily through physical exercise. And in Amsterdam, the cost of one day of treatment for internet addicts ranges from €500 per day to several months.
Paradoxically, the more technological means appear, the faster the pace of life and the less time there is for communication.
Machines do a huge number of things for us: they wash clothes, do the dishes, and iron them. It would seem that everything is done so that people can spend their remaining time with each other. But it turns out that we don't even know our neighbors on the same floor; hopefully, we even say hello to them regularly. Those scenes from old movies, where neighbors tell each other practically their entire life stories, now seem simply absurd.
On the one hand, the further from the center and closer to the periphery, the less noticeable the impact of urbanization. True, according to this logic, maximum linguistic communication should occur in remote villages. Unfortunately, in the periphery, additional laws come into play, often reducing communication to zero. In the Nizhny Novgorod hinterland, there's a wonderful village called California. Or rather, it almost was, as the decision was made to demolish it, as not a single living soul remained in this Nizhny Novgorod state; everyone fled to the center, uninterested in communicating with their peers. The official reason for the closure is stated as follows: “The abolition of the settlement is due to the lack of population, real estate owned by individuals and legal entities, and prospects for restoration.”
It's possible that we're living in an era of new language formation, a time of influence from various external forces that, at best, lead to language transformation and, at worst, to its complete extinction. For example, the development of communications alone is reducing the number of living languages by an average of one every two weeks.
UNESCO and the UN are conducting extensive work to protect languages from extinction, developing various legal and other documents, such as the Endangered Languages Programme, the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the Recommendations for the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace.
Of particular concern to all specialists in the defense of multilingualism is the damage to language caused by cyberspace and the absorption of a vast number of languages by the internet. Moreover, the most pessimistic even predict that it won't be long before the internet takes over everything, leaving no choice but to adopt the dominant language in that space (incidentally, English, Chinese, and Spanish are currently considered the most widely spoken languages in the world). It turns out that “the first language gets the slippers,” and whichever language now, during the rise and development of mass computerization and internetization, occupies the most available internet resources will eventually become the global language.
The threat of the extinction of linguistic cultures, changing behavioral patterns, internet addiction, mental disorders and autism, isolation and disunity combined with the illusion of active communication—this is only the tip of the iceberg of the potential negative impact of internet technologies on modern Homo sapiens. What lies beneath the water that covers the remaining nine-tenths of this iceberg remains anyone's guess. After all, not enough time has passed since cyberspace actively took over the lives of ordinary people to study all the possible consequences of its activities.
At the same time, to be fair, it should be noted that internet technologies make it possible to perform a huge number of useful operations with minimal linguistic communication, and sometimes even without it. Here are a few examples:
1. So-called “freelancing,” or working remotely, that is, online, is becoming increasingly popular. For example, for young mothers with small children on maternity leave, it's a real escape. After all, they can not only bring home a few pennies but also learn a ton of interesting and useful information while preparing to write an article.
2. When looking for a job, you can save a lot of time by simply sending your resume to the required email address.
3. A huge number of advertising agencies are increasingly turning to online surveys as an effective method of conducting marketing research. Interviewers receive a small fee, and clients receive survey results covering specific categories that are difficult to collect in real life.
4. Online ads with photos and descriptions allow you to quickly obtain the necessary information about a product, order it, and wait for delivery. This is the “On the Couch” category of stores.
5. Anonymity. Even the Duke of Orleans loved to wear a cloak with a deep hood so he could wander the city unrecognized and listen to “primary sources” of information. And why are we any worse? The opportunity to communicate incognito allows us to be ourselves, to relieve the pressure of societal morality and conventions that demand adherence to certain norms. Of course, online communities have rules too, but if you don't like them, you can simply move on to another site.
6. Transcontinental. The ability to discuss a problem or question with the entire world at once is truly a gift for any knowledge seeker. Again, you can easily learn how, say, Guatemalans feel about adding cinnamon to eggnog. And all this in a matter of minutes, without even lifting your buttocks from your chair.
7. Modern education is simply unthinkable without the internet. It's a treasure trove of invaluable information, and some libraries are even converting their collections to digital format, providing online access. Furthermore, modern PhD and doctoral dissertations can be checked for plagiarism, or uniqueness, thanks to specialized websites, to avoid being caught.
8. A valuable discovery for surgeons worldwide is the ability to broadcast surgical procedures via webcams. Scientists invited to such conferences not only have the opportunity to see all the parameters on monitors and monitor the progress of the operation, but also participate indirectly, consulting with the surgical team.
9. At three o'clock in the morning in a remote village, you can use a communicator to find out whether Machiavelli was a 19th-century Frenchman or an Italian from the 15th century.
For all its advantages, the internet isn't omnipotent. It can't provide the shared experience of surfing the web like a walk in the woods, sharing shared experiences and situations. You can't have a drink or sex with it. And that's a good thing, because it's physical contact, the feeling of someone's shoulder next to you, that makes real life truly real. After all, no matter how much you say “halva,” it won't make your mouth any sweeter.
At the same time, we shouldn't exaggerate the harm of the internet and assume that it's killing the language of communication. It's possible that webcams will soon be as accessible and commonplace as modems, and it will be much easier to click a mouse, open a window, and chat directly with a friend in Seattle, Mariupol, or the village of Bol'shiye Pupyrishki than to type a message in a forum or chat room. Then language will return to its rightful place.
