Virtual Space and New Language Practices: Memes, Slang, and Lexical Transformations

As of 2025, more than 5.2 billion people in the world use social media, which is about 63.9% of the world’s population, with a growth rate of 4.1% over the past 12 months. The most popular platforms are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and WhatsApp. The average time spent on social media is about 2 hours and 26 minutes per day, and the average user has access to seven different platforms. Speech on social media is based on the same language norms (lexical, spelling, grammar, syntax) as live speech. The purpose of the article is to provide an extended analysis of lexical innovations in the language space under the influence of social media and digital communication tools. The object of this study is the modern vocabulary of several languages used within social platforms (Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram). Particular attention is paid to modern English, which is the most widespread language in communication practice – approximately 1.5 billion people speak English, and 52% of the world’s most popular websites contain English-language content. The article uses scientific and linguistic analysis to investigate the peculiarities of the transformative impact of social media communication on language at all structural and functional levels: lexical, phonetic, grammatical, syntactic and graphic. The article analyzes the characteristic lexical changes by groups – memes, neologisms, abbreviations and acronyms, phraseological units, hashtags. The functions of different categories of lexical innovations of social networks are determined, in particular: hashtags form the basis for unimpeded communication in an intercultural context, neologisms are means of constructing the identity of certain social groups, memes have the functionality of entertainment and information, disseminating precedent information in the format of textual and graphic expression. The negative aspects of the impact of social networks on language are identified: excessive simplification of language and loss of its individual nuances, the emergence of inaccuracies and grammatical errors due to the spontaneous nature of communication on social networks, as well as potential negative consequences for mental health. The study proves that the modern space of innovative language practices reflects new concepts of social media communication culture, interactive upgrading and visualization, which transforms religious and cultural aspects and promotes sustainable language changes.