Reaction to "r u Online"

I found this reading very interesting because it directly relates to my generation's internet/texting vernacular, which I myself use on a fairly frequent basis. It focuses primarily on instant messaging and text messaging and the new vocabulary that has been created to save on time and text character use. The article points out the different interpretations of this phenomenon - whether it is dangerous to literacy and grammar as we know it, or if it is just a fairly harmless, 21st century form of slang; I would argue for the latter. Though this internet lingo breaks just about every grammatical rule, this is not an issue as long as the users of the lingo still know proper grammar, which is taught in the classroom, not in an instant messenger.

Just as people speak differently depending on where they are and who they are talking to, this shortened text syntax has its own place and use. When I am chatting with someone online I use informal writing and abreviations, but I know that I can't use this same style of writing in academic papers or other formal pieces of writing. I think this is the key to this whole issue - whether or not our generation understands when to use this grammar and when to use formal grammar, and I think that for the most part our generation does a prettty good job.

The use of this "Net Lingo" is also rather subjective and differs greatly on a person to person basis. The boy who is used to exemplify the points of the article seems to almost be an extreme user of this lingo. I too multitask like crazy and I think that a very interesting point that the article makes is in regard to our generation's ever dwindling attention span (of which I am certainly an example), but I don't think I have ever had 20 instant messaging conversations at once, nonetheless do so frequently. He also uses some phrases that I have never used, and many that I try to avoid. A very common example is "lol," a phrased originally intended to indicate laughter, but one that has been degraded so much that is seems to be used after every statement in a conversation - even if there was never any laughter or even anything legitimately humorous about the topic. I personally try to avoid cliche phrases like lol (if I want to indicate humor, I am fine with adding one more character and typing "haha"), omg (unless I'm feeling satirical and using it in a way as to poke fun at the rediculousness of the acronym), and ttyl (I find that if I have had a conversation with someone, I can at least write out some form of goodbye). This is not to say that I don't use net lingo, I do rather frequently, but I use it within reason and try to keep some form of normal dialect in my conversations, and this, along with where to use it, is the key.