Always On
Language in an Online and Mobile World
Naomi Baron
Reviews and Awards
"Naomi Baron artfully combines historical surveys, research summaries, and findings of her own to give us a comprehensive, insightful, and thoughtful handbook for understanding electronic communication-what it is, how it works, and how it's changing our lives and our interpersonal relationships." --Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University, author of You Just Don't Understand and You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation
"Naomi Baron skillfully weaves together cutting-edge technology topics with historical vignettes, and scholarship with provocative views. She is not afraid to take a stance on hot-button issues, be it the effects of the Internet on language change, whether writing done in electronic media is debasing standards for the written word, or whether we are changing fundamentally as social and thinking beings as a result of being constantly connected through technology." -- Susan C. Herring, Professor of Information Science and Linguistics, Indiana University
"Naomi Baron's wonderful book points out the many unique and fascinating aspects of what we now take for granted: the emerging languages of the Internet and cell phone. She skillfully explains how these new technologies are transforming the ways in which we communicate, along with how we relate to each other in everyday life."-Barry Wellman, S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
"In Always On Naomi Baron analyzes the ebb and flow of language as it confronts ever-new forms of mediation. She is on the forefront of examining how technology and language interact and how they form the lens through which we see the world. Baron helped us understand the effect of email on language in her prize-winning book From Alphabet to Email. Now she uses the same keen insight and crackling good prose to examine instant messaging, mobile based text messages, online social networking, and the effects electronically-mediated communication is having upon our language and upon ourselves." -Rich Ling, Senior Researcher, Telenor