42 pages • 1 hour read
Gretchen McCullochBecause Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Key Figures
Themes
Index of Terms
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaKey Figures
Author Gretchen McCulloch
Gretchen McCulloch writes and podcasts about linguistics for a general audience; her specialty is internet linguistics. She graduated from Canada’s McGill University with an advanced degree in linguistics and writes the Resident Linguist column at Wired magazine. She also blogs at All Things Linguistic and hosts the Lingthusiasm podcast. Her book Because Internet became a New York Times bestseller. Of her popular work, she writes: “[…] I realized that I enjoyed this public-facing writing more than the academic kind” (143). McCulloch lives in Montreal.
Old Internet People
One of the five populations of onliners as defined by the author, Old Internet People are “the first wave of people to go online” (68). Technically savvy—they knew how to write computer code and repair digital equipment—Old Internetters helped define proper online behavior—“netiquette”—and much of the network’s early slang.
Full Internet People
Arriving online in the late 1990s as part of the second wave of internet joiners, Full Internet People didn’t need technical knowledge to go online via AOL or use internet messaging. A fairly young group, they’re “Full” because they made use of the internet’s full potential as a social gathering place. They picked up internet lingo as they went along, and they learned to contribute to it as well.
Semi Internet People
Semi Internet People arrived online at the same time as Full Internet People, in the late 1990s, but they did so mainly for work, research, and shopping; they “used the internet as a tool but mostly kept their social lives as before” (77). This group was older and more fully employed; their social world was offline, and their use of language was more set in its ways.
Post Internet People
As part of the most recent wave of new onliners, Post Internet People were born into a world already connected to the internet. They’re the youngest group of netizens: “Kids are all getting online at the same young age, socializing there as preteens or early teenagers” (92). They’re the most thoroughly adapted to its ways, lingo, and dynamism.
Pre Internet People
Pre Internet People grew up before there was an internet; they’re mostly elderly, and many resisted going online until it became clear that they could use it conveniently to stay in contact with their children and grandchildren. They’ve also taken advantage of online access to government resources. Despite the advantages of internet communication, “the Pre Internet People don’t feel socially connected to the internet even when they do use it” (100).
