Parasocial is Cambridge Dictionary Word of 2025, how it shows effect of internet culture on English?

New Delhi: The Cambridge Dictionary on Tuesday came out with its word of the year for 2025, "parasocial”. The word is defined as "involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know".

The origin of the term dates back to 1956 when it was developed by two University of Chicago sociologists who based it on observing the behaviours of television viewers developing relationships with television personalities, viewing them as close friends or family. The phenomenon has only exacerbated with time, with social media influencing and artificial intelligence platforms taking the concept further. 

New entrants to the Cambridge Dictionary also included words such as  "skibidi", "delulu" and "tradwife". The three were among "6,212 new words, phrases and meanings" included in the online dictionary over the past 12 months. Many of these new additions arrive out of internet culture and social media, which currently can be seen as the principal mode of changing the now globalised English language.

The dictionary only adds words that are thought to have "staying power", according to one of its lexicographers, Colin McIntosh, and in this way the inclusion of internet culture words are only obvious. "Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary," he added.

This trend is nothing new, and has been seen to repeat in past some years as well. Of this year’s inductions for example, ‘Delulu’ is said to be a play on the word delusional and ‘Tradwife’ is short for traditional wife, defined as a "married woman, especially one who posts on social media, who stays at home doing cooking, cleaning".

English thus is clearly changing and the biggest motor of this change is social media and the internet. This though is not an altogether bad thing. A language that does not change and adapts with time becomes a dead language. Modification is thus an inherent function of language and English being the most popular and in use language in the world will obviously be seeing changes. 

It has done so throughout its history as well, but now the main influence that binds the language together is popular culture, a global one. The entry of the internet has also accelerated this process, and words today become popular around the world overnight. They also have a generational quality to them, with most being restrictive to specific age groups. Regardless of how differently the changing effects of language now operate compared to the past, it is inevitable that newer trends in the internet will keep on spewing new trends in how we use English and in the addition of new words to the language. We can only adapt and acclimate to this inevitability.