Introduction

I have decided to look at the tweets (from popular social networking site Twitter) of 12 different Twitter users, 6 young teenagers and 6 middle aged adults, and compare how different ages use language differently on the internet, specifically on Twitter. I will use 6 similar teenagers, all of the same age, social background and all from a similar area so there won't be any dialect differences. I will do the same with the adults, and keep them all a similar age and background so I use different people but still have some variables the same to get better results.

I will look at the different language features and punctuation each of my chosen people use and the topics of the tweets they compose and I will compare the differences between the two different age groups. I will look at politeness theorys and apply aspects of language and technology to my study to back up my results and explain my findings.

What I think I will find, is that the younger teenage generation will be more relaxed with the language and punctuation and not be as literate in their tweets.I think they will use Twitter as more of a social website to talk to friends and tell friends about their random thoughts and daily whereabouts. I think the older generation will use better language and punctuation in their tweets and be a lot more formal with them. I think the subject matter of the tweets will also be more formal and possibly be more about the current affairs or social issues other than random thoughts and opinions. I think they will use it less socialy, like to talk to friends and other people, as most of the people they may talk to would not use social networking sites and would use a phone or email to contact one another.