Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

by Gretchen McCulloch

Chat is also competing with email in professional contexts. For instance, Slack is a chat platform for talking with workplace teams. The first time I got to talk with my internet service provider’s tech support via chat rather than on the phone, it was a delight to be able to simply type in the correct spelling of my name and address rather than having to spell out each part aloud. With digital assistants that can set timers or respond to our queries about what the weather’s going to be tomorrow, chat is also becoming an interface for us to talk with the machine itself. The key feature of chat is its real-time nature, but what it means to be real-time has shifted as our internet norms have shifted. When the internet was a place for die-hard hobbyists to explore new people to talk to, in the days of chatrooms full of strangers, the room would announce your arrival to those who were already there (“________ has entered the chat”) and your departure to those who remained (“_________ has exited the chat”).