freyavstheworld's review
4.0
(3.75) i love linguistics!! very interesting but some parts felt a little off topic at points
applej314's review
5.0
A really fascinating look at something I sort of take for granted. I found the look into how teenagers talk on the internet accurate to by experience, and was really interested by the discussion of how older people coming into internet use reluctantly change or don't change their language. As someone who very much grew up with online life, it was also cool to get to look back and see how it all started. Awesome stuff, and if you've been on tumblr in the last few years you'll definitely recognize some of the posts she references.
david_brent's review against another edition
4.0
I highly recommend the audiobook version. There are definitely parts of this book that are better read aloud instead of being restricted to the page. Also, the author's tone, inflection, and -- dare I say it -- Canadian accent -- are truly unique.
holodoxa's review
3.0
Because Internet is a breezy, sometimes humorous review of how the internet affects the natural evolution of language. McCulloch also dives into to other Internet-based forms of communication like emojis and memes, which are probably the most interesting portions of the book. McCulloch is well-versed in the internet world and her prose is clear and easily digestible. However, a lot of the purported insights of the work are fairly intuitive or somewhat broadly known, especially to long time users of the internet. Moreover, most of the work is descriptive and without a ton of depth or technical insight. It would have been more compelling for McCulloch to lay out a clearer, more detailed model for language evolution in the internet age (rather than some vague though of course somewhat true gestures at network theory) and then explore the social consequences. This latter point especially is completely undeveloped but is really the true import of doing this type of work, outside of the jollies one gets from laughing at silly internet things.