It’s not polite to swear. In fact, you can get in deep doo-doo if you swear in school depending on certain factors. But what about swearing while on social media? Some places’ Twitter and Facebook accounts actually ban swearing while others take a more laissez-faire approach. Either way, there’s no denying that there are plenty of swears uttered on social media.
But what about comparing social media to TV? Who swears more? Let’s take a look at the facts and figures:
Swearing on TV
Profanity has risen 69% over the past five years on broadcast TV, according to a new study by the Parents Television Council that compared the first two weeks of the fall television season in 2005 and 2010.
The f-word was bleeped out or muted 11 instances in 2005 — and 276 times in 2010, an increase of 2,409%. Sh*t was bleeped out 11 times in 2005, and 95 times in 2010, up 763%, the study reports.
The PTC says much of the profanity appears between 8 and 9 p.m., when children are more likely to be watching. For example, the f-word was heard during that hour 10 times in 2005 and 111 times in 2010; the s-word went from 11 instances to 42 in those same years.
Fox showed the greatest per hour increase of profanity from 2005 to 2010: 269% across all prime-time hours, according to the PTC.
“Our analysis of the first two weeks of this still-new fall television season shows a disturbing trend that shocked even us. Profanity is far more frequent and the profanity itself is far harsher than just five years ago,” PTC President Tim Winter told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.
The PTC calls for “broadcasters to set parameters and publicly explain their broadcast standards. Advertisers must also ensure that the language they help bring into our living rooms is consistent with their hard-earned corporate brands.”
Swearing in Social Media
People swear. It’s not by accident. Social media is often used to vent frustration to a large audience with little to no repercussion. This means it’s probably quite easy for someone to swear while on social media. Don’t believe me? Check out Cursebird, a live tracker that shows real-time stats about people swearing on Twitter. Jolie O’Dell recently considered the question of swearing in social media and made this handy video:
Twitter is not the only place people might swear. What about Facebook? Turns out fewer and fewer people are actually swearing on the social networking site. GigaOm found out that instead of swearing, many people are resorting to shorthand. (e.g. FML, etc.):
Over the last year the site’s status messages have contained remarkably fewer average curse words than in years past, according to stats the company released today. Bombs of both the “f” and “s” variety saw their usage undergo among the biggest year-to-year drops of any word used in Facebook status messages. But at the same time, a new pseudo-swear rose to prominence: “FML.”
Facebook’s data team said its last big peak of “f***” came after the Patriots lost the Super Bowl in Feb. 2008. “With a slightly more mature crowd, we expect that there will be less cursing per capita,” says the blog post, which explains Facebook’s method of counting phrases as ratio of status updates and condensing them into subject areas. “And not only that, but if your mom is reading your FB status, you’d better watch your mouth.”
But that doesn’t mean Facebook users aren’t expressing their frustration using obscenity — they’re just doing it in abbreviated fashion. Facebook’s No. 2 gaining term or topic of the year, according to the post, was “FML” (No. 1 was anything related to farming, due to the popularity of FarmVille). The trendy acronym, popularized by the tragic stories on FMyLife.com and of an appropriate length for texting, tweeting and IMing, gave complainers a witty way to express their angst, however quotidian.
“FML” was most popular in May 2009, which Facebook hypothesizes had to do with rainy weather and students taking finals, and over the course of the year peaked each week on Tuesdays. Facebook doesn’t specify what countries it took the data from.
What do you think?
Do you think TV accurately represents the amount of swearing taking place in the real world? Does social media accurately represent it? Let me know in the comments or over on my #@$%^ing Twitter account @edudemic!
-Thumbnail image courtesy CBS’ $#*! My Dad Says
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