Is the Internet a melting pot?

Is the Internet a melting pot creating a new lingua franca the “Engternet”? After different waves jeopardising cultural diversity such as the different aspects of globalisation including global markets and infrastructures the Internet and related services are a potential silver bullet to kill diversities. Why a similar concern? Because once more a dominant actor come on stage. This aspect takes us to carefully consider the importance to preserve “diversity”, especially in the digital age. Which is the real value of diversity? We all know that the world population today is bigger than the number of people that lived on the planet earth since the human race appeared, but incredibly today is easier to disseminate ideas and content through the planet reaching individuals. This is one of the effects of the global inter-communication in the digital era. Moreover global software tools are unleashing everyday creativity no regards about citizenship, language, gender or census. On one hand the digital age is enabling better opportunities to exploit local cultures and knowledge due to minorities, on the other hand such a “global village” jeopardizes minorities and local cultures playing the role of standardization agent. A kind of English language, the one generated by spelling and grammar checkers, and translators is still placed in pole position but very close we find Chinese language quickly improving its ranking. New devices and communication standards are inspiring new languages built on abbreviations, phonetic equivalences, graphic signs and emoticons, will the 140 chars tweet became the new structure of verses? Smart phones and tablets are breaking time and space barriers including formerly divided people in the emerging cultural phenomenon. This is true both for young generation but even for elderly people that find tablets and smart phones more user friendly than “old” computers. Digital technology is offering new ways to express creativity in different fields: music, images, videos, physical objects and more, enabling young generation to express their feeling and contribute to the creative industries