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The internet appears to be causing young people to lose their southern drawl — and our unique regional accents aren’t the only thing it’s taking from us.
Research from the University of Georgia shows that, generation over generation, regional southern accents are declining, thanks in no small part to social media. It’s just another way that the internet is making us all a little more the same.
Young people who grew up online learn how to dress, what to listen to, how to act, and even apparently how to speak from strangers.
It’s stripping away our individual differences, and our regional differences, and transforming us all into digital copycats.
Our accents, our tastes, even our personalities have been steered by algorithms. Do we even really know who we are?
Johns Hopkins associate professor Margaret Renwick analyzed a collection of recordings of Southerners going back to the 1960s and found that, generation over generation, southern accents are declining in both black and white populations.
Specifically, young people are losing those classic drawling vowels. In white populations, they peaked among Baby Boomers, and in Black speakers among Gen Xers. The internet has only precipitated the decline in Millennials and Zoomers of all races.
Emory University linguist Susan Tamasi told The Atlantic that the internet is stickier, on an accent basis, than older mass media like television because kids actually talk to each other on social media and video game platforms.
When the average kid is spending almost five hours a day on social media, they’re effectively being raised more by people online than the people around them. Considering many kids are starting their internet journey as tots on YouTube, is it any wonder they’re losing their accents?
As a digital native from New Jersey, I’ve noticed the phenomenon. Many of our parents said “dawg” or “cawfee,” but none of my peers did, nor did I. (I have only hung onto “hawr-uh-bull.”) Nobody beat the dialect out of us, we were just pumped full of digital media.
If it can make us all sound more similar, surely social media is flattening our differences in other ways.
When I got to New York University, one of the most diverse schools in the world, friends from all over the country and all over the world all showed up in freshman year with the same “going out” outfits — black crop tops, light wash jeans, white sneakers or black boots. We all filled the exact same mold.
Go on TikTok, and you’ll be reliably informed on what hot girls are wearing, what cool people are listening to, what places near you are “in,” and which items in your closet are “out.” Influencers are curating the taste of billions.
Worse yet, we’re surrendering our preferences entirely to algorithmic recommendations. Our music tastes are shaped by Spotify’s suggestions. Our Instagram feeds are increasingly filled with what we might like, rather than the people we follow.
Go on a trip to any city, domestic and abroad, and you’ll see people imitating the latest TikTok trend in their outfit choices. The chic restaurant probably also looks a lot like the one in your hometown. Even in countries where English isn’t the native language, you’ll hear kids saying “6-7.”
Of course social media has its upsides. Right now in Iran, young protestors who were able to get a glimpse of freedom and democracy abroad through their screens are standing up to a brutal regime.
Social media can be a powerful force for good when it comes to spreading liberalism and democracy. But it’s a corrosive engine of conformity when an entire generation is developing identities online.
We’re losing what makes us unique in the era of social media. We’re being taught what to like, who to follow, what to wear. We’re exporting the effort it takes to curate taste and to develop into an individual to algorithms.
Increasingly ,this is a world where everyone looks the same, everyone sounds the same, everyone thinks the same. It’s time to log off — and to reclaim our individualism.
