Technology Overload...Spare the English Language

On many occasions, I find myself bothered by the everyday, run-of-the-mill, glossed-over status quo. I have been told, and recently, that I ponder the depths of reality perhaps a smidgen more than most people. To those that question my perplexities, I say wonderful, questioning my uncertainty is much better than questioning the nothingness that exists absent conscious thought. So as this prelude may suggest, I would like to delve into my most recent of sociological ponderings.

I got a good chuckle the first time I saw a cell phone commercial on TV accentuating the latest cell phone language as created by tweeners and young adults. I found myself asking my 10 year-old what TTYL meant and other myriad militaristic acronyms commonly used for text messaging phones. This language was fine at first, used as a modern day Morse code of sorts, to abbreviate communication into a slightly less wordy style of chit-chat. I thought it would work well in business as a form of short-hand or maybe even in informal communication situations between acquaintances. It was not until I realized the full scope of this language and its replacement of the written word that I began thinking about the repercussions of such an absentminded and insincere form of communication. Gone are the days of thoughtful, expressive, well-written communication. In, it seems, are the days of email notes and text messages used to unabashedly express ones inner most thoughts to anyone with a hand-held device. Am I the only one with a problem replacing conservative practices, in this case our written language, with futuristic artificiality? In the words of my contemporaries, what in the world (WITW).

To take my point a step further, I ask you; at what point in time did the old fashioned letter get replaced with a broken, abbreviated language sent digitally in the form of a disingenuous epistle? Everyday, I see people typing into their phones, what I can only surmise is the last chapter of a small novella, sending their notes to their loved ones, and thus smiling as their phones beep with the answer ILYSM or some other illegible, silly, nonsensical, reply. LOL all you want but this is no laughing matter.

I wonder where the days have gone when we sat down and communicated our thoughts through the written word. Perhaps you received a hand-written letter from a love interest or a friend letting you into their world for a moment; a unique glimpse that could be retained and reread, reviewed and returned. These perspectives are all but gone in today’s world. In the world of our children, I imagine all communications will be in the guise of hurried verbiage in digital form (HVIDF).

My futile hope is progress spares the written word. The future does not have to be a cold and callous world filled with unintelligent acronyms and stiff-thumbed pubescent tweeners. It is up to us to stop the onset of HVIDF with hand-written or typed words found the English dictionary. We can do it. You can help. IMCO. Just a thought