The Best Tech Words Of 2019

While one might to imagine this meeting taking place in a Hogwarts-styled library with books floating in the air, the reality is probably far more reliant on technology. It’s not surprising then, that a good amount of new words being added are in some way or another related to the technology that powers the age we live in. So ditch the dusty old wizard hats, whip out those Google glasses that weren’t even made in the end, and let’s take a look at the best new tech words added to the dictionary in 2019. 

Screen Time

Screen time is a term that has been in use for quite a while, and it makes a lot of sense thanks to its very literal description of the thing it….well, describes. In a world of abbreviations and buzzwords, it’s striking to see such a simple term finding its way into the dictionary. If it wasn’t obvious enough, screen time is the amount of time that one spends staring at a screen, either from a phone, a computer, or TV.

Unplug

Directly related to the word above, the new and shiny meaning of this iteration of unplug is the act of leaving the phone elsewhere, laying off the social media feeds, and enjoying some of the things the world has to offer that don’t come through a data wire for a while. Liberating to some, anxiety-inducing to others, either way the word is here to stay.

Cybersafety

For corporations, banks, or governments, cybersafety is the process of protecting their digital data from being accessed by unauthorized third parties or compromised in any way. Thanks to a rise in online espionage among countries and illicit use of data from certain online platforms and social media sites, cybersafety has gone from an obscure term mainly used by I.T. departments, to being in our dictionaries.

Page View

Page views are the bread and butter of websites that exist for purely commercial purposes and depend on advertisement revenue to stay afloat. The more page views a website has, the more it can charge for advertisements. As simple as that. 

Bottle Episode

A mainstay of TV shows that run for 10+ seasons of 20+ episodes each, a bottled episode is an absolutely inconsequential, lazy, and cheaply made episode whose only purpose is to cash in on the show’s reputation. Sometimes there are more legitimate reasons for a bottle episode, such as unintentionally going over budget with certain scenes, and having to keep the costs in check with a bit of cheap filler. Regardless of intentions, the result is the same.

Vulture Capitalism

Immensely common in our day and age, and even more so when there’s an economic downturn, vulture capitalism is the practice of acquiring struggling businesses, especially software or online ventures with few physical assets, on the cheap, and then dissolving them into the company in order to pursue a market monopoly. A bit of an insult to vultures, if we’re being honest.

Gig Economy

Recruiting freelance workers for certain events, especially related to the service sector, has always been a huge business activity. The act of engaging in short term arrangements between a company and freelance workers, usually via online applications and job-searching sites, is now described as a gig economy. Due to the challenges of freelance work, we’ll have to wait and see how this word develops over the years, as it can remain a mere description, or end up being used in a completely derogatory manner.