Social, boomer and language. Three concepts closely linked to each other, especially in recent times. Not only because social media have, since their inception, influenced communication. But above all why in very recent times this way of communicating has become “boomeristic”, to coin a new adjective. That is, more malignant and evil, but also out of time and rigid. A definition that is no longer limited to a specific age but which is involving many generations, in a transversal way.
Social and boomerism, how the language on platforms is becoming bad
«On social media, language changes more and more quickly for a very simple reason, it serves to be recognized more than to communicate. The grammar has adapted. Sentences have become shorter, subjects tend to disappear, punctuation now signals moods. “Ok” is neutral, “ok.” sounds cold or passive aggressive, “okkk” is enthusiastic, “ok…” is a veiled threat or suspicion, “ok ” is affectionate. The phenomenon is not new, adolescents have always been the main linguistic innovators of the human species. What social media has changed is the speed of adoption and the scale of diffusion. So much so that in 2025, the dictionary Cambridge it introduced terms that were widespread among young people and then became common use. However, in the meantime they have gone out of fashion” explains Dr. Sara Di Ienno, a psychologist specializing in anxiety, relational difficulties and parenting education, also present on MioDottore.it. Language is therefore something alive, which continues to change and modify itself.
What we are witnessing in the very last period is one new evolution of social language, its boomerism. If until some time ago, this adjective mainly characterized the way of communicating of the boomer generation, those born between 1945 and 1964, today this way of communicating has spread to many generations, including even the youngest.
The result? Many platforms have become fertile ground for malicious and malicious comments, but also little ability to adapt to new languages and dogmas, the inability to understand the register to therefore understand the tone used and the tendency to comment as if one were giving a monologue. All attitudes that until now were typical of a non-digitalised generation, and which therefore struggled on social media.
Social media has boomerised: why?
Usually on the different platforms, a precise response is often given to users who use the wrong register: “The blue social network is the other one”, indicating that the platform on which one is writing is not Facebook but another. Over the years, in fact, Facebook has become the meeting place for many people, especially those who, both due to age and personal frustration, use harsher and often less appropriate language. This climate has led many young people, Millennials and Gen Z, to leave the “blue social network” for other platforms, Instagram first and foremost.
In recent months, however, we have been witnessing a slow “Facebookization” of Instagram too. With consequent changes not only to the register of tones used on the platform but also to the spread of a climate of greater intolerance.
And not it involves only those in their sixties but also the younger ones: «The phenomenon also involves adolescents because their identity is built through continuous acts of differentiation: each group, to define itself, also needs a “they”, someone from whom to distance themselves. “Boomer” is a convenient label, because it is vague enough to include anyone who displays characteristics perceived as dissonant by the group. The consequence is that the term is also applied to peers. All it takes is for a sixteen-year-old to say “I prefer to see us in person”, defend the rules or show technological caution for him to be branded a “boomer” by his classmates. Among other things, if when addressed to an adult, “boomer” can remain in the generational joke register. Among peers it sounds harsher. Then there remains the problem of internalized ageism: the recurring use of “boomer” as an insult, even among young people, reinforces the idea that growing old means losing value» explains the expert.
On a communicative level, social media also allows a lowering of inhibitions. How come? «Face to face you notice if the other blushes, if he withdraws, if he looks away. Online those signals disappear. The brakes that keep people anchored to shared norms in face-to-face communication are missing. Anonymity, invisibility, asynchrony and absence of immediate consequences they favor a marked reduction of inhibitions which can go in two directions. When it is benign it allows sincere openness and empathy towards strangers very different from us, but it also presents itself in a version that produces license to attack.”
No longer knowing how to regulate your emotions on social media
It is therefore very difficult to regulate one’s emotions on social media. Those who already struggle to regulate their emotions in reality find a way to vent them in these spaces, thanks to anonymity: «Online there is no face that responds, no delay between impulse and action. And algorithms amplify the mechanism: every word with emotional value increases the probability that a content is shared by 20% (Brady et al 2017). In other words, the system rewards reactivity, builds an environment in which aggression appears normal and polarizes» explains the psychologist.
And that’s how it is some attitudes that were previously typical of a certain generation, which grew up without any type of digitalisation, have now been cleared by everyone. Such as the inability to read the register with which messages are written, to take an ironic message seriously or vice versa, because they lack the tools to understand the difference, to think that one’s opinion is something worthy that deserves sharing but to write it as if it were a monologue, without thinking of an exchange. The refusal to understand the context, and to comment simply to let others know that you exist, and not realizing that your comment has consequences: I have an opinion, therefore I exist, therefore I write it and communicate it. A behavior that is no longer exclusive to 60-year-olds but has now spread to other age groups as well.
A mechanism which, as also explained by the psychologist, social media themselves facilitate. The continuous scrolling of the reels leads to a constant comparison with mechanisms and realities that it is sometimes difficult to decode, therefore leading to emotional and immediate comments. The more emotional the comments are, the more the algorithm puts them into circulation, thus expanding the user base. With consequences, in the long run, on changes in language.
But not only that. There is also another phenomenon, perhaps little known, but no less important: «Repeated exposure to negative stereotypes about aging produces measurable effects on the health of older adults. A Yale study even detected alife expectancy reduced by seven and a half years for participants who had internalized negative stereotypes about aging». That is, continuing to write and read even a simple “Ok boomer” leads in the long run to internalizing that concept. And therefore to premature aging. All due to poor management of language and social media.
