Goodbye To Hello In The Digital Age

from the formality-is-for-the-analog-world dept

Hello. Does anyone actually type "hello" and "goodbye" any more? It doesn't seem to fit in a digital world with email and instant messaging. I know I tend to go with the much more informal "hey" and "later" when dealing with friends. A new study has shown that "hey" and "later" and plenty of other ways of saying hello and goodbye are taking over for "hello" and "goodbye" itself. One person in the article is quoted as saying that, fifty years from now, he doesn't expect there to be any need whatsoever for hello and goodbye in digital communications. Goodbye.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2003 @ 1:08am

    No salutation at all

    among frequent correspondents

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2003 @ 2:07am

    This has happened before

    In the age of telegraphy, telegraph operators invented all kinds of weird abbreviations to reduce keystrokes. Trendies back in the day inserted the weird abbreviations into their speech. The so-called digital age is repeating the same phenomenon. 99.9% of telegraph abbreviations are obsolete today. Those who insist on using the weird abbreviations of the era would sound quite foolish indeed.


    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      grep, 5 Aug 2003 @ 6:48am

      Re: This has happened before

      Yeah, except that in the days of telegraph, you paid by the word.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    August Jackson, 5 Aug 2003 @ 6:43am

    The new "good-bye"

    "Smell you later."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    slim, 5 Aug 2003 @ 6:48am

    One use for goodbye

    In 2050, when the last person who still subscribes to AOL signs off for the final time after they figure out they can get the internet for $9 bucks a month instead of $24 bucks a month, that AOL guy will utter his last: "Goodbye."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    DV Henkel-Wallace, 5 Aug 2003 @ 8:34am

    there's still a need!

    fifty years from now, he doesn't expect there to be any need whatsoever for hello and goodbye in digital communications
    Hey, in Japan I always start a phone conversation with "mush-mushi" (hi...or think of it as ASCII character 0x02 (STX -- Start of transmission)). The compression code takes a moment to start up (it's powered down until needed) so the beginning of the first syllable gets cut off.

    I never had an i-mode phone, but this was true with all the PHS (i.e. DoCoMo) phones...if you have one try it!

    And if anyone complains of you starting/ending a conversation with "hey", just tell 'em you're speaking Swedish.

    Hej.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Richard NC Arsehill, 5 Aug 2003 @ 9:49am

    No Subject Given

    hello hi ola shalom

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Doug, 5 Aug 2003 @ 10:38am

    Written

    E-mail and instant messaging are written forms, while "hello" and "goodbye" are customarily used in spoken communications.

    Letters, notes, memos, and other conventional written forms rarely use "hello" and "goodbye", so it is hardly surprising that e-mail and instant messaging follow suit.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    swapnil, 19 Mar 2009 @ 1:16am

    Goodbye To Hello In The Digital Age

    digital world is a world of shortcuts we use to say hi and by nowadays this pure english has been remain for exams only, in the world of cell phones no-one use to say hello and goodbye.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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