Punctuation Revolution: The Demise of the Full Stop in Modern Communication

Abstract

With the rise of portable (mobile, cellular) technology, language took a serious hit with the abbreviations of actual words. Some linguists would argue that the understanding of a text message completely composed of abbreviations as opposed to full words and sentences showed the shrewdness of the younger generations in communication and their agility in understanding, with very little input from the sender of the message. However, it is not just words that have taken a serious hit; punctuation has also suffered this fate. At first, words had to be abbreviated, as mobile phone operators charged per character. As such, punctuating was certainly out of the question. As technology further advanced, it seems that many punctuation marks have made their return, except for the full stop, which seems to be struggling to make its comeback. Gen Zers consider it too serious and, to an extent, passive-aggressive, and seem to avoid using it even in more formal written communication, such as in emails and text messages to their (college) professors, employers and institutions. The present study aims to explore how Gen Zers view the use of the full stop in certain written communication, as well as the reasons behind it. For this aim, a small-scale survey was carried out on a group of university students, which provided us with empirical data to test our hypotheses and discuss the implications on a broader scale.