American Product
...ays on the Yibe Tebe Islands or even shoot an unfaithful spouse, all we have to do is just put down key words in a search engine and click a button. We can even have friends in an other hemisphere and keep in touch with them via e-mails. There is nothing impossible! Nowadays the pace of life is much more dynamic than it used to be in former times. The world is speeding up. Time has a measurable value. Time is money. I suppose there is no other nation that is closer to this motto than Americans. The British saying “take your time” is rather an uncommon thing when comes to planning something in States. It certainly is one of the reasons why they are pioneers in nearly every aspect of life. Time is a rationed good so every single minute must be spent properly. Having said that we can compare it to the Internet and notice that it is a greatly time control supporting tool. What a large amount of time we normally waste waiting in a crowded bank, walking from one shop to another in order to find some products that are few and far between or even driving to work! E-business is a fantastic remedy for the problem. A very practical, time-saving solution. It’s like a drive-through or a pre-cooked meal – no redundant activity is required. Obviously, a significant aspect of socialization is missed (e.g. meeting new people in a shop aisle), however, we can spend more time at home with our families. One of the consequences of a dynamic, rushed life is undoubtedly the change in communication between people, the change in language. Coherence, not rich vocabulary or complex grammar structures, matters. We must quickly speak our thoughts and jump to another subject. There’s no time for wordy speeches. So it is with the Americans’ language, the language of the Internet. English grammar is being reduced only to the most pragmatic part of it, and short forms like “r”, “c”, “u” successively have squeezed out their full equivalents in Internet dialogues. Unless it’s a poets’ forum or we want to imitate the great orator, F. Castro, it’s pointless to produce rich longer speeches. People won’t read it or at best drop off, while they are reading it. Talking about the Internet and its users, American society and Americans, and the things they have in common, one cannot leave out the approach towards others. Not only friends or relatives in the US address each other by name but it’s an ordinary thing between employer and employee or just-met people, even if age disproportion would allow one of them to be a grandparent of the other. Informality is meant to break the ice in contacts, to be more direct, not to hamper behavior. Due to the structure of the Internet, people using it don’t have to pay attention to the social class they and their adversary belong to or care about the barriers of age. They, as directly as possible (excluding the filth), can articulate their views, and the other side should not feel offended as they usually know only the nickname of an interlocutor. Sociologically, it’s a very interesting instrument of unifying people. Informality, in the Internet’s case, stems from anonymity. As has already been said, because people don’t know (much about) each other, they treat each other equally which leads to another important aspect of both American and the Internet culture – egalitarism and free competition. Recently, I’ve seen a BBC story about a gifted 16 year-old boy who applied for an Internet software company’s game graphic artist position (uff). Fortunately, the recruitment procedure was reduced to writing some software program without presenting a diploma or any certificates, nor an interview. He somehow managed not to reveal his age. Of...