Whaaaaat’s the deeeeal wiiith theese long vowels in our texts?

Have you noticed a reeeeeeally annoying trend recently for texters to lengthen the vowel count in words? I'm certainly guilty. I rarely send a simple "hi" to instigate a WhatsApp conversation. No, "hi" can come across as cold or short. So I find myself writing "hiiiiii" in the hope of sounding friendly.

And it's not just instant messages and texts. You can see it on Twitter, accompanying links to film trailers (“this looks amaaaaazing”) and in email ("sooooo excited to see you").

According to a study by the University of Toronto, “word lengthening” is on the rise. Why? Linguist Michael Erard told The Atlantic that we’re attempting to mimic our verbal speech in digital communication. “When people talk, they use intonation in a number of varied and subtle ways. There’s a lot of emotional nuance that can be conveyed that you can’t do in writing,” he said.

So next time someone tells you that they're "goooood" via text, they haven't necessarily had too many wines at lunch; they’re just trying to express themself.