More Proof That Western Civilization Has Slid Into The Crapper

Kids are writing school assignments using the same shorthand they use in text messages.

"Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to the study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in partnership with the College Board’s National Commission on Writing. About half said they sometimes omitted proper punctuation and capitalization in schoolwork. A quarter said they had used emoticons like smiley faces. About a third said they had used text shortcuts like “LOL” for “laugh out loud.”

More worrying, academics don't seem worried about it.

“I think this is not a worrying issue at all,” said Richard Sterling, emeritus executive director of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve the teaching of writing.

It took humanity a few thousand years to drag itself up from using pictograms scrawled in the dirt to Moby Dick. Now, it seems we are starting to go back down the other side of the mountain.