What do you think?
Rate this book
Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World
In Always On , Naomi S. Baron reveals that online and mobile technologies--including instant messaging, cell phones, multitasking, Facebook, blogs, and wikis--are profoundly influencing how we read and write, speak and listen, but not in the ways we might suppose. Baron draws on a decade of research to provide an eye-opening look at language in an online and mobile world. She reveals for instance that email, IM, and text messaging have had surprisingly little impact on student writing. Electronic media has magnified the laid-back "whatever" attitude toward formal writing that young people everywhere have embraced, but it is not a cause of it. A more troubling trend, according to Baron, is the myriad ways in which we block incoming IMs, camouflage ourselves on Facebook, and use ring tones or caller ID to screen incoming calls on our mobile phones. Our ability to decide who to talk to, she argues, is likely to be among the most lasting influences that information technology has upon
the ways we communicate with one another. Moreover, as more and more people are "always on" one technology or another--whether communicating, working, or just surfing the web or playing games--we have to ask what kind of people we are becoming, as individuals and as family members or friends, if the relationships we form must increasingly compete for our attention with digital media.
the ways we communicate with one another. Moreover, as more and more people are "always on" one technology or another--whether communicating, working, or just surfing the web or playing games--we have to ask what kind of people we are becoming, as individuals and as family members or friends, if the relationships we form must increasingly compete for our attention with digital media.
289 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
11 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
Naomi S. Baron
15 books11 followersProfessor Baron is interested in electronically-mediated communication, writing and technology, the history of English, and higher education. A former Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright Fellow, she has published seven books. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World won the English-Speaking Union’s Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Award for 2008. Her new book, Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, will be out in early 2015.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 17, 2008
A pretty good survey of language use and current online and mobile technology -- but not as good as it could have been.
The first half of the book presents the results of Baron's research on IM and Facebook use and text messaging, which is very heavy on stats and summaries and such. More interesting for me was the second half of the book, which as all about analysis of the data and historical perspective. She mostly got it right, and has several terrific points to make about the fact that all the ills we attribute to emerging technology -- social isolation, eroding grammar skills and the like -- are actually long-running social trends that predate (and perhaps even gave rise to) online and mobile technology.
Her argument is undercut somewhat, however, by an underlying "gosh, these kids today!" attitude. "Always On" is obviously a book written by a 60-something academic for other 60-something academics who just don't understand all this crazy technology and terminology that their students are using. Baron comes across as an emissary living among a strange tribe for a time, then reporting back to her own cultural group about all the strange and wonderful things she found there. While her assessments are ultimately clear-headed, they also seem a little backward-looking, colored by the social assumptions of an older generation.
The first half of the book presents the results of Baron's research on IM and Facebook use and text messaging, which is very heavy on stats and summaries and such. More interesting for me was the second half of the book, which as all about analysis of the data and historical perspective. She mostly got it right, and has several terrific points to make about the fact that all the ills we attribute to emerging technology -- social isolation, eroding grammar skills and the like -- are actually long-running social trends that predate (and perhaps even gave rise to) online and mobile technology.
Her argument is undercut somewhat, however, by an underlying "gosh, these kids today!" attitude. "Always On" is obviously a book written by a 60-something academic for other 60-something academics who just don't understand all this crazy technology and terminology that their students are using. Baron comes across as an emissary living among a strange tribe for a time, then reporting back to her own cultural group about all the strange and wonderful things she found there. While her assessments are ultimately clear-headed, they also seem a little backward-looking, colored by the social assumptions of an older generation.
August 24, 2021
Baron, Naomi S. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Will the English language survive our text and tweet linguistic innovations? Naomi Baron says, yes, mostly. Always On reports on an intriguing experiment. Baron collected months of online posts by a group of college students and analyzed them for acronyms and other linguistic features. She may have expected more nonstandard language than she found. She concludes that the English sentence will survive our new short-form communication. That is refreshing to hear. Is the book especially well written? Not really. The research was already four-years old when the book was published. It would be fun to see a second edition with fresh data, but I doubt that will happen. 4 stars, and still worth a look.
Will the English language survive our text and tweet linguistic innovations? Naomi Baron says, yes, mostly. Always On reports on an intriguing experiment. Baron collected months of online posts by a group of college students and analyzed them for acronyms and other linguistic features. She may have expected more nonstandard language than she found. She concludes that the English sentence will survive our new short-form communication. That is refreshing to hear. Is the book especially well written? Not really. The research was already four-years old when the book was published. It would be fun to see a second edition with fresh data, but I doubt that will happen. 4 stars, and still worth a look.
Read
April 8, 2009Now what's REALLY funny is I read this online through my university's library. LOL
I enjoyed this book and the reflections on how technology changes our lives and culture, but there were times it was plodding. At the last chapter she FINALLY got into the really thoughtful, in-depth reflection she had been hinting at the whole time (which is ironic, since she continually says that people won't stick with an entire book anymore, just want the nuggets of info.)
I enjoyed this book and the reflections on how technology changes our lives and culture, but there were times it was plodding. At the last chapter she FINALLY got into the really thoughtful, in-depth reflection she had been hinting at the whole time (which is ironic, since she continually says that people won't stick with an entire book anymore, just want the nuggets of info.)
March 17, 2016
Not bad, and pretty interesting. However, even though it was only published in 2008, it's already dated. Unavoidable really, considering the subject and how quickly things change.
Read
June 22, 2020I recently finished Naomi Baron’s Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Baron is a linguist at the American University in Washington, DC and has done a lot of research and writing about how technology is changing the way we use language. This book was written for a general audience and received good reviews from linguists and non-linguists. The main goal of Always On is to lead the reader in a discussion of how technology has changed over the past few decades and how that is influencing our use of language. Several chapters are devoted to presenting research evidence for the author’s claims about how language is used in different media. Baron’s discussion was often intriguing and interesting, but the research available was unsurprising and the author’s arguments and implications were often unclear. There were, however, some important points to be made for the digital literacy educator.
One of Baron’s focuses in her research is whether technologically based writing (IM’s, text messages, blogs, etc) is more like writing or like speaking. The findings basically showed that there are elements of both (IM conversations, for example, often lacked contractions, much like written English, but had shorter utterances like spoken English). To Baron, this mixing of spoken English with writing is concerning because the writing done by the generation who grew up with IM and texts appears to come in far larger quantities, but with far lower quality, both grammatically and stylistically. She calls this the “whatever” attitude. I think any of us who have read text messages, Facebook posts, or Instant Messages can agree that grammar and spelling do not follow typical standards. From a linguist’s point of view, this is not terribly concerning. Linguistic research is more concerned with how the human brain constructs grammar rules (rules that exist in all or many languages), and not with rules that have been created by committees or scholars. In other words, linguists are interested in how people can be understood by one another, and not with spelling and punctuation. Still, a generation of “whatever” is troubling because language standards are still important for professional and academic work. For our work as teachers, this might be especially troubling. I see students who use computers regularly and rely on Spell Check and Grammar Check far too much. Students who are preparing for standardized tests like the GED and college entrance exams will need to know the standard rules, which they will not get from the current state of computer-mediated communication.
Large amounts of technology access and use certainly affect more than just our use (or lack of use) of grammar and spelling, and Baron addresses these issues. For one, the digitally literate are much more used to multitasking (I have music on as I am writing this). Multitasking may hinder learners, may help learners, or it may just depend on the learner. Studies have shown that doing work with other background sounds and stimuli is less effective, but other studies have shown that “mood music” can help in studying. For me as a computer teacher, I think it is important to remember that most of my students are not used to such multitasking. That is, when I have a class working on a computer activity, I need to remember that any interruption, however short, might be very hindering for my students. I might be used to working on a computer while listening to a teacher’s instructions, but it is important to remember that my students may not have the same multitasking skills.
One of Baron’s most interesting arguments – which is a bit of a diversion from the rest of her discussion on language use – is that technology is making us more socially isolated. The effect of being “always on” is not just that face-to-face conversations appear less frequently, but also that people feel less comfortable with their social skills. The “always on” generation, according to Baron, is more likely to avoid social situations. I think most of us reading this can recall a time (probably recently) that we’ve intentionally avoided small talk (or a stop-and-chat as Larry David like to call it). Baron’s discussion of this phenomenon was interesting and convincing, but it was a divergence from the theme of the book, which is how technology is affecting language.
Always On succeeded in making me think a little more critically about the effects of technology on language use, but the book was often obvious Baron’s arguments weren’t terribly convincing. I don’t think it takes a large amount of research to show me that IM’s do not follow Standard English rules. And Baron’s argument about how technology is destroying scholarly English is completely exaggerated. There will always be the folks who write effectively and use the English language beautifully and those who don’t. I think what’s more important is that technology has the power of bringing language to more people, even if it isn’t the Queen’s English.
One of Baron’s focuses in her research is whether technologically based writing (IM’s, text messages, blogs, etc) is more like writing or like speaking. The findings basically showed that there are elements of both (IM conversations, for example, often lacked contractions, much like written English, but had shorter utterances like spoken English). To Baron, this mixing of spoken English with writing is concerning because the writing done by the generation who grew up with IM and texts appears to come in far larger quantities, but with far lower quality, both grammatically and stylistically. She calls this the “whatever” attitude. I think any of us who have read text messages, Facebook posts, or Instant Messages can agree that grammar and spelling do not follow typical standards. From a linguist’s point of view, this is not terribly concerning. Linguistic research is more concerned with how the human brain constructs grammar rules (rules that exist in all or many languages), and not with rules that have been created by committees or scholars. In other words, linguists are interested in how people can be understood by one another, and not with spelling and punctuation. Still, a generation of “whatever” is troubling because language standards are still important for professional and academic work. For our work as teachers, this might be especially troubling. I see students who use computers regularly and rely on Spell Check and Grammar Check far too much. Students who are preparing for standardized tests like the GED and college entrance exams will need to know the standard rules, which they will not get from the current state of computer-mediated communication.
Large amounts of technology access and use certainly affect more than just our use (or lack of use) of grammar and spelling, and Baron addresses these issues. For one, the digitally literate are much more used to multitasking (I have music on as I am writing this). Multitasking may hinder learners, may help learners, or it may just depend on the learner. Studies have shown that doing work with other background sounds and stimuli is less effective, but other studies have shown that “mood music” can help in studying. For me as a computer teacher, I think it is important to remember that most of my students are not used to such multitasking. That is, when I have a class working on a computer activity, I need to remember that any interruption, however short, might be very hindering for my students. I might be used to working on a computer while listening to a teacher’s instructions, but it is important to remember that my students may not have the same multitasking skills.
One of Baron’s most interesting arguments – which is a bit of a diversion from the rest of her discussion on language use – is that technology is making us more socially isolated. The effect of being “always on” is not just that face-to-face conversations appear less frequently, but also that people feel less comfortable with their social skills. The “always on” generation, according to Baron, is more likely to avoid social situations. I think most of us reading this can recall a time (probably recently) that we’ve intentionally avoided small talk (or a stop-and-chat as Larry David like to call it). Baron’s discussion of this phenomenon was interesting and convincing, but it was a divergence from the theme of the book, which is how technology is affecting language.
Always On succeeded in making me think a little more critically about the effects of technology on language use, but the book was often obvious Baron’s arguments weren’t terribly convincing. I don’t think it takes a large amount of research to show me that IM’s do not follow Standard English rules. And Baron’s argument about how technology is destroying scholarly English is completely exaggerated. There will always be the folks who write effectively and use the English language beautifully and those who don’t. I think what’s more important is that technology has the power of bringing language to more people, even if it isn’t the Queen’s English.
January 6, 2026
Always On is a thoughtful, rigorously researched examination of how digital and mobile technologies shape the way we use language and relate to one another. Naomi S. Baron challenges common assumptions about technology’s impact on literacy, revealing that tools like email, instant messaging, and texting have not radically altered writing skills as much as they have amplified existing cultural attitudes toward communication.
Particularly compelling is Baron’s analysis of control and availability how technologies allow us to manage access to one another through screening, blocking, and selective responsiveness. By situating these behaviors within a broader historical and linguistic context, she raises important questions about attention, presence, and the social costs of constant connectivity. Clear, balanced, and deeply insightful, Always On remains a foundational work for understanding language, technology, and human interaction in a digitally saturated world.
Particularly compelling is Baron’s analysis of control and availability how technologies allow us to manage access to one another through screening, blocking, and selective responsiveness. By situating these behaviors within a broader historical and linguistic context, she raises important questions about attention, presence, and the social costs of constant connectivity. Clear, balanced, and deeply insightful, Always On remains a foundational work for understanding language, technology, and human interaction in a digitally saturated world.
January 19, 2024
due to the subject of the book, it is quite outdated - Baron talks about the blackberry as the height of tech, and the iPhone hasn't really come onto the scene in any meaningful way/at all...
really interesting assessment of core anthropological principles around technology, communication between people, and how people use language in different settings.
really interesting assessment of core anthropological principles around technology, communication between people, and how people use language in different settings.
January 10, 2009
There were a few things I actually didn't like about this book. First, its scope surprised me. I expected to read about how language is being influenced by the internet and cellphones, and while the final three chapters definitely focus on this in detail, the first seven focus on the rise of IMs, email, and text messaging in society, only hinting at the possible effects this might have on language. Still, though, it was all interesting. Another problem was that her research seemed a bit narrow. Baron does admit that her studies on IMs, etc., are "pilot studies," as they only survey students from one, maybe two universities. The primary school, though, was American University in DC, which I would venture to guess is not the most racially or economically representative (i.e. diverse) university in the nation. So all the data seem to require big giant asterisks. Again, though, interesting. Finally, a lot of the conclusions regarding language change are fairly speculative. Of course there is no way of knowing where language is going, so this is understandable, but it seems Baron might have taken more of a stand, given her research and expertise. Here is her answer to the fundamental question that made me pick up the book:
Is the Internet destroying language? If you look at the effects—direct or otherwise—on traditional language, the case is highly tenuous. True, electronically-mediated language and the likes of spell-check and Google make it easy to drift into sloppy writing habits. The culprit, however, is not the technology. Depending upon how you view the situation, fault lies either in ourselves or in the more global "whatever" attitude regarding regularity in language. When it comes to speech, the potential effects of the Internet (at least as of now) are negligible at best.
I like a book, though, I realized, that presents more questions than it answers. Baron provides a large number of possibilities for further reading, so the fact that the book doesn't purport to be the end-all authority is, I think, fine.
The conclusion that she comes to, incidentally, is not that language is suffering as a result of technology. Rather, that our interpersonal relationships are more immediately at stake. I learned a lot from the book. Baron's arguments are well reasoned and the tone of the book is serious but not dry.
Is the Internet destroying language? If you look at the effects—direct or otherwise—on traditional language, the case is highly tenuous. True, electronically-mediated language and the likes of spell-check and Google make it easy to drift into sloppy writing habits. The culprit, however, is not the technology. Depending upon how you view the situation, fault lies either in ourselves or in the more global "whatever" attitude regarding regularity in language. When it comes to speech, the potential effects of the Internet (at least as of now) are negligible at best.
I like a book, though, I realized, that presents more questions than it answers. Baron provides a large number of possibilities for further reading, so the fact that the book doesn't purport to be the end-all authority is, I think, fine.
The conclusion that she comes to, incidentally, is not that language is suffering as a result of technology. Rather, that our interpersonal relationships are more immediately at stake. I learned a lot from the book. Baron's arguments are well reasoned and the tone of the book is serious but not dry.
November 3, 2013
The things that I most appreciated about this book related to Baron's desire to seriously question how the patterns and ways we communicate with each other hold the potential to fundamentally change interactions for both the better and worse. Specifically, Baron attempts to explore these topics with an open-mind--rarely lapsing into the ideologically laden prose of those who either celebrate or bemoan technology. I also appreciated that she wanted to write a book that was accessible and relevant to academics and non-academics alike. Finally, I was happy that she grounded her work in empirical study, even if it was limited to small numbers of students (who she might have also more clearly admitted were of a fairly uniform socio-economic background, which has to influence her findings). However, despite all of these admirable qualities, it was hard to get over how dated this book already seems. Though published in 2010, so many aspects of how Baron describes chatting and texting (in particular) already seem a distant memory. This is hardly Baron's fault. Indeed, it points to the necessity of constantly exploring and chronicling the ways our lives are constantly changing in reference to technology.
July 15, 2013
I read this book because I saw Naomi Baron on C-Span's Book TV. The beginning of the book, in which Professor Baron describes her research studies, was a bit frustrating for me, because the use of the specific technologies and websites studied has changed dramatically in the past 5 years. IM and MySpace are out, texting and Facebook are in. Facebook is no longer limited to use by people in academic institutions. This portion of the book already seems like it would be more valuable to historians than linguists. The latter portions of the book, where the personal and cultural effects of the use of technologies and websites are discussed, remain timely. This book is fascinating and thought-provoking, and I look forward to reading Professor Baron's other books.
There is a typographical error on p. 193, at the end of the "Text in the Fast Lane" section--"And how did we became so obsessed with time?" I found it humorous to see this error in a book which so eloquently describes some of the drawbacks of spell check on p. 178.
There is a typographical error on p. 193, at the end of the "Text in the Fast Lane" section--"And how did we became so obsessed with time?" I found it humorous to see this error in a book which so eloquently describes some of the drawbacks of spell check on p. 178.
January 6, 2011
This book was a refreshing read and doesn't focus so much on the negative aspects of technology like other books. It debunks the perceptions that technology is degrading language and points out that current trends in language are reflective of trends that have been in place for quite some time. If you're under the impression that IMing and Texting has created another language of abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons, then you may be in for a surprise. In addition to discussing language, the book also talks about other technology such as Facebook, You Tube, and Wikipedia.
no-for-now
August 9, 2010Fabulous concept but here is the problem...
Much of the research behind the book is from 2004 and 2006. Do you remember what online life was like 5+ years ago? Basic social networking functions were completely different, e.g. Facebook's Wall. I kept stopping the book to laugh or wince because the things they were talking about were just so dated by now.
Much of the research behind the book is from 2004 and 2006. Do you remember what online life was like 5+ years ago? Basic social networking functions were completely different, e.g. Facebook's Wall. I kept stopping the book to laugh or wince because the things they were talking about were just so dated by now.
October 11, 2008
Much like an undergraduate thesis. Dry and unsurprising.
Want to read
April 17, 2009If you can't fight it, learn about it.
March 17, 2016
Interesting and quickly becoming outdated...
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews