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When you read books, you increase your knowledge on spelling and vocabulary. Writing books enables you to achieve a tighter grasp on grammar. However, chatting and e-mails make you forget both. What good is this?
Many people come onto Whyville to chat, and as they do, they throw all of the English knowledge they have out the window. Do you actually care what you are writing about? Humans thrive over computers because with one simple click of the keyboard, that embarrassing spelling mistake can be fixed without the recipient ever knowing its occurrence. Some people on Whyville are oblivious to the lack of a comma, period, quotation mark, or colon. What advantage does skipping these things have for us? Well, for one thing it is faster. You do not have to spend you time searching for the semi-colon button, or tying to master the art of the comma.
Humans are not dumb creatures, mind you. We find simple ways to make the most out of our time. Computer-lingo, as it is known, has spread worldwide and is used on Whyville more times than can ever be imagined. For instance, "LoL" is an expression that means "laugh out loud". For those who tend to leave their computer for a period of time, we have invented "brb" which stands for "be right back".
Nevertheless, our creations do not stop there. They have been taken one step closer, in a world known as the facial symbols. No longer do you have to write down the emotions that you are feeling, but instead you can express them with your computer. The emblem of a smiley face =) or frown face =(, silly face =P and mad face >=( have become increasingly popular, and you have probably used them several times yourself. They are cute, fast, and efficient, and usually get your feelings out in an efficient manner.
So how can the computer be a method for higher learning? Can we say that we come on to expand our horizons, or take part in computer chat jumble-mumble? I agree with people when they explain that computer-lingo has hurt them at school. How many times do you catch yourself writing something that you say on the computer? I know that used to be a habit for me, but usually I can correct myself before I go too far. Even in Times Articles, I notice people using those same expressions, abusing the power of language with computer-lingo.
As French poet, Rene Daumal once said, "from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble, and from babble to confusion". What is interesting is that the use of computer dialect can even make you seem like an entirely different person. More often than not, I think of those who use too much "LoL" in their sentence as a twaddle child or a barking dog rather than a potentially intelligent student.
Abolish the one-word answers and strive to have an actual conversation with another person. Why chat when they only thing you are achieving are if the person is all right or not? "Hey, how are you doing?" and "I am fine" are the only things you can get out of another person these days. Although chatting is fun, in a sense it is also meaningless. A waste of time if you don't put it to use. That's an opinion, mind you. I do not have any facts for that one.
Trying not to use too much computer-lingo,
-TIKE
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