Influences of Social Media on the Use of Thai Language

The internet has become an essential elevator to change the standard and lifestyle of message senders and receivers. The majority users of internet are youngsters who pass the messages to each other quickly and effectively, in which the usage trend of new kind of language which is called “Netspeak” (the words, idioms, and peculiarities of spelling and grammar that are characteristics of online documents and communication) has become an irreplaceable choice for Internet users. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate how social media influences users behavior of Thai language on the social media including the internet and the social network and thus its trend in the future. This study used qualitative research approach consisting of two methods: observation and face-to-face in-depth interview. Face-toface in-depth interviews were conducted by five interviewers who were Thai with 21 social media users in total and all key informants were Thai social media users. As for the observation, all messages displayed by 21 selected users on Twitter.com and Facebook.com were observed. The findings show that all respondents talked about the popularity of using cyber Thai language on social media including words and symbols. This could be the opportunity to research and develop new products related to this type of language.