Regular readers of this column will know that I am suspicious of cyberspace innovations — from Facebook to MySpace to Second Life — that substitute the accumulation of “friends” for actual friendship, ...

“How am I even supposed to respond to this?” My friend shows me her phone screen, where her dad has replied to a long, complicated, logistic-filled text message with a simple “Ok 👍.” We’ve all been ...

Two weeks ago I gave a talk to a group of University of Michigan at Ann Arbor undergraduates called “Txtng and the Future of English.” As a linguist who studies the history of the English language, I ...