With new technology and the streamlining of forms of communication that our society has experienced in the past decade,there has been an evident trend in decreased formality. When people text, email, blog, chat, etc, they abbreviate. “U”, “urs”, “lol”, “btw”, “asap” sneak into a lot of our networking media, especially texting. There is absolutely nothing wrong with abbreviating to get a point across faster. It’s more efficient to say something in 3 letters rather than 3 words when typing, so why wouldn’t you abbreviate?

I have nothing against these abbreviated forms of speaking, but have you ever caught yourself typing them without thinking? I’ve noticed that I do it a lot in papers for school and emails. Once you’ve typed a page or two of content, you start typing exactly what you are saying in your head, but since its easier for ur fingers to type like this bcuz they r used to it, it just sort of happens. It’s easy to make mistakes in formal writing this way, and I think with each generation we are going to see more of this “abbreviated” typing.

My question is, will this become acceptable? Will formal writing no longer be required in business interactions (other than written contracts and legal documents)? Emails and interoffice correspondence have already begun to use it. Everything is about efficiency now, so if the communication is still effective, it would make sense to make it faster and easier. This is more just food for thought, and just something that I wanted to get an opinion on, so feel free to comment.