Oxford Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend
Social networking on the internet has given us plenty of new words and terms (such as “social networking”), and the New Oxford American Dictionary is paying attention. The publishers announced that “unfriend” is their word of the year for 2009.
unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”
“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most “un-” prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar “un-” verbs (uncap, unpack), but “unfriend” is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of “friend” that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!). Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”
Other words considered for the honor included hashtag, sexting, and paywall, all of which are unfamiliar to my spellchecker. Link -via Mashable
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Karmawish: A Social Networking Site for Doing Good Deeds
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Social Media Venn Diagram
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Facebook Justice: Fighting Crime with Facebook
Stupid criminals who love to brag about their crimes aren’t new, but add social networking to the mix and police have a new tool to bust them. It’s a new kind of justice … Facebook justice!
Asylum has a nifty post about the 6 crimes solved by the popular social networking website. For example:
Lesson #1: If you spray paint a special tag all around town, you might not want to brand it to your Facebook page.
We totally get the need to broadcast talents to friends on Facebook — that’s what it’s for, right? But unless you’re Banksy, your masterful tags probably won’t go over too well with the feds. That’s why, when specific tags were appearing all over Winnipeg, officers received a tip directing them to Facebook, where they found the same designs on an 18-year-old’s page.
Lesson #2: If you get caught on surveillance camera, just because you don’t have a mug shot on file doesn’t mean your face isn’t already out there for the finding.
Smile! … Or not. The Queenstown police of southern New Zealand nabbed their first Facebook crook after they caught a good shot of a burglar looking directly at the security camera after removing his mask. Quickly after posting the shot to their two-month-old page, tipsters sent suggestions and they identified the 21-year-old thief.
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Is Facebook Bad For Young Brains?
Here’s another reason not to use Facebook: social networking websites may actually harm brains of its young users!
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day. [...]
‘We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist,’ she told the Mail yesterday.
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Her comments echoed those she made during a House of Lords debate earlier this month. Then she argued that exposure to computer games, instant messaging, chat rooms and social networking sites could leave a generation with poor attention spans.
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