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Is it really wise to allow the language to be tersed?
When I was in Elementary School, we learned how to write letters. We learned how to format a letter, how to take the time to spell correctly and to use language effectively because the person receiving the letter would be honored by the time I spent writing the letter.
I was taught that the way I speak impacts the way people think about me. I learned Diction (careful pronunciation of words) and language.
Then in the late 1970's, eMail happened. Because the message was delivered near instantly, it became a bit less formal. When someone took the time to carefully write an eMail, it honored the readers and was regarded highly. This is not to say that all eMail should be formal, there is value in personal expression because it conveys meaning when you know the person receiving the message. There is considerable value in a quick reply "Thank you", or "I am on it".
We developed online forums, so people could "chat" through computers. Threaded discussion because a common collaboration tool in the early 1980's.
We learned not to participate in "Flame Wars" where offended individuals would let everyone know how frustrated they were. We learned this in the 1980's, but it seems this continues 40 years later.
Simple Cellphones increased communication. It was possible to call someone on the way home from work, or while shopping. Sadly, the rise of technical incivility flourished about this time - telephone calls in restaurants and in public restrooms seemed out-of-place.
Texting came rapidly, and because the input method was multiple presses of letters in a telephone dialing pad, a terse, cryptic sub linguistic developed. cul8tr, lol, rotflol became common.
Sadly, when Smartphones came about, the cryptic linguistic remained even though we had complete keyboards and punctuation. Some people spelled words and sentences, and used punctuation, others refused to take the time. This spilled over to eMail and online forums.
Somewhere in here I think the School Teachers gave up and we stopped teaching English.
"Social Media" happened, and the level of Civility did not really improve. We reveal more of ourselves now, and folks seem to get a lot more riled up.
It seems as if we became a bit more sensitive, and the written media erodes some of our empathy and willingness to give folks a break. We emphasize differences, rather than looking for similarities.
The written word allows us to feel a bit isolated and empowered than might be helpful. It is easy to "fire off" something for someone else to figure out, clarify, and resolve. Taking the time to provide enough well-written content so the reader does not have to play "20 questions" is helpful. Our language provides tools for being clear about tense, pluralization, and audience. Very often we see writing that takes no time to be clear and to use readers' time well.
At the same time, we became empowered to post photographs and boy oh boy are a lot of fascinating photographs posted online.
In the mean time, we changed the focus of our communication from the reader (listener) to the writer (author). In ancient times, teachers taught us to think about our audience and make sure we provided helpful context and wrote carefully. We learned to read to understand.
Then, we invented the "notification". At random times day and night, the little box cries out "bing". This is a prompt to pick up the little box, swipe away the lock screen, unlock it, open the Texting application and look just to find out it is a reminder about an appointment in three days, or notification that someone posted something.
In ancient times, we thought about a message:
1) How urgent is it?
2) How important is it?
3) How important will the receiver think this is?
This helped us be considerate and choose wisely between a Letter, a telephone call, a Voice Mail message or an eMail.
I think we interrupt and "bing" a lot more than we should. A lot of "bing" interruptions do not require immediate attention. It is as if every thought of anyone on the internet is empowered to interrupt anyone about anything. As a result, important messages are not read.
Isn't robot texting wonderful? Next we will have AI bots empowered with Robot texting binging live humans for who knows what.
This binging and contributed to the sense that "new" is priceless. It created a bit of a neurotic effect for some people.
Civility is not a seconds-new notion, but it might still be useful.
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