The Evolution of Language in Social Media Comments

TL;DR

This study analyzes 34 years of social media comments, revealing universal patterns of reduced complexity and lexical richness over time, driven by intrinsic human linguistic tendencies rather than platform-specific effects.

Contribution

It provides a large-scale longitudinal analysis of linguistic evolution in social media comments, highlighting universal behavioral patterns across platforms and topics.

Findings

Consistent reduction in comment length and lexical richness over time

Users introduce new words at a nearly constant rate

Platform influence on comment complexity is partial, reflecting universal human behavior

Abstract

Understanding the impact of digital platforms on user behavior presents foundational challenges, including issues related to polarization, misinformation dynamics, and variation in news consumption. Comparative analyses across platforms and over different years can provide critical insights into these phenomena. This study investigates the linguistic characteristics of user comments over 34 years, focusing on their complexity and temporal shifts. Utilizing a dataset of approximately 300 million English comments from eight diverse platforms and topics, we examine the vocabulary size and linguistic richness of user communications and their evolution over time. Our findings reveal consistent patterns of complexity across social media platforms and topics, characterized by a nearly universal reduction in text length, diminished lexical richness, but decreased repetitiveness. Despite these trends, users consistently introduce new words into their comments at a nearly constant rate. This analysis underscores that platforms only partially influence the complexity of user comments. Instead, it reflects a broader, universal pattern of human behaviour, suggesting intrinsic linguistic tendencies of users when interacting online.