By: Alan Chen

Emojis were once described as the universal language of the digital world. But now people are using more abbreviations than emojis. Some abbreviations like LOL (laugh out loud), OMG(oh my god), or GTG(got to go) have been used for years. But teens are making lots of more abbreviations and other symbols.

There are a lot of new abbreviations such as ILYSM(I love you so much) or FTW(for the win), and OFC(of course). Lyn Stone, clinical director of Lifelong Literacy said that the sudden change to abbreviations is because of a desire to be quicker and faster, but also to show more than just an emotion.

Ms Stone said, “Emojis have also been expanded slightly to also replace words, which is handy when you have character limits. But either way, they’re fairly one dimensional and constrained,” this means that emojis sometimes don’t have the feeling you have or something else.

Abbreviated words and phrases like BTW(by the way) or IMHO(in my honest opinion) have a bit more depth to them and are more abstract, like beyond simple feelings or actions. Suzie Shaw, executive officer of We Are Social says that her group has seen a significant rise in abbreviations and acronyms in teenager social media.

Ms Shaw says, “In contrast with emojis, abbreviations can be more efficient in expressing whole sentences and can have very specific and widely understood meaning compared to emojis, which risk being misinterpreted,” This means that it is easier to understand abbreviations than emojis.

“For example, while Boomers and Millennials use the thumbs up emoji as a sign of encouragement or approval, Gen Z often uses it as a sarcastic or passive aggressive good job on something you messed up.” This means that some emojis have multiple definitions depending on who you are and how you act.

Ms Shaw continues, “Acronyms are becoming more and more obscure such as IJBOL(I just burst out laughing) or NGMI(never gonna make it). So popular are some of these abbreviations that they’ve transcended text into spoken word. Although they’re not necessarily understood by those older, including parents of teams. This means acronyms are getting obscure”

Zac Nowytarger says that most of his friends have stopped using emojis and even are up to the point where they say it’s time for emojis to go. He says, “Emojis have gotten older and even though abbreviated words don’t show much emotion in the text, emojis aren’t really used so there’s no point in keeping them around.”