Like, like, like

I had visited one of my cousins. This cousin had a daughter who was around 18 or 19 years old. She was a college student. During my visit she had come to speak with me. She was telling me about her course and college, "In my college like we have a lot of courses. Of those courses I have like selected the ones which I find like interesting. My professor had like told me to like go for some course which would like include like science and such subjects. But I was like I want to take like something different. So I like selected literature". While listening to her, I felt as if I was going to end up with a brain damage. I had never heard such an exaggerated and unnecessary placement of "like" in a conversation.

This was not only with my niece. I have seen a lot of youngsters specifically between the ages of 15 years to 30 years who speak in this manner. The use of word "like" is done in excess and also it makes no sense when they use it. When we listen to these people speak, I completely lose the track of the conversation. After every sentence they say I need a moment to pause to remove all the "likes" from their sentence and make a sentence that makes sense. I am not a shamed to say that because this is what the reality is for me. I was educated in the way to use short and presides sentences that make sense. However with today's generation the sentences are neither short nor they make sense (Note: I am not taking down the road to understand their slang/casual language. I think I am too old for that).

Unfortunately this is the reality of today. Young generation is consuming the content that is easily available over the internet. They watch a lot of content that is created by influencers. I have observed that the vocabulary of the influencers is very limited and they use "like" as one of the fillers along with "I mean", "you know", "literally" and "all that stuff". The younger generation is learning how to converse by watching these influencers. A lot of them believe that speaking like the influencers will make them sound "cool". Then there is another bunch of youngsters who think that the way influences speak is normal and that is how they should speak with others. Both possibilities are equally horrifying and uncomfortable to listen to.

The youngsters believe that it makes them trendy to speak like the influencers. I am not denying that it could be true. I am not a part of that generation to understand what is considered to be trendy among their own peers. However I am among the group who is trying to make sense of what they say. I probably belong to the group who is going to interview the youngsters for jobs. And from that point of you I can definitely say that the over usage of "like" is not good. The interviewer are not going to be impressed with the broken sentences and overusage of "like". They are not going to find it trendy. Hence the use of "like" should minimized, so that what they say is clear and concise.

A request to my readers: if you have youngsters in your life who is guilty of over using "like" in their conversation, then I request you to please have an honest conversation with them. Inform them that the conversation which is ambiguous may hamper there future and career progression. Invest some time in them so that there conversational skills can improve. I believe it is our responsibility to shape the future generations and we should do that starting from today.