At least 13 million Americans aged 12-17 have chatted through online instant messaging services according to a Pew report. The teens chat for a combined three million hours each day. Besides exploiting the teens’ time, these hours and IMs are destroying the English language.

Teachers bemoan the inferior English writing of their middle and high school students. Abbreviations make no sense, punctuation is vanishing and capitalization at the beginning of sentences is forgotten. In the world of instant messaging, abbreviations are acceptable. But not all writers can distinguish between an online chat, letter written in Microsoft Word or email crafted in Outlook.