Is the digital media affecting the way we communicate? I’ve that most of the middle school and high school students I tutor can’t string a proper sentence together to save their lives. Somehow, they got it in their heads that internet acronyms are acceptable in personal narratives. When I try to explain rules of grammar like passive voice vs. an active transitive, split infinitives, or prepositions at the end of sentences I get blank stares.

I didn’t grow up with the internet from the beginning, but I had it long enough during my formative years that it destroyed my writing capability. The casual communication between friends has shattered the written word as sure as slang destroyed proper pronunciation, but, while most people can communicate both professionally and casually in their speech, they cannot seem to make the same connection with their writing. I can’t count the number of supposedly professional e-mails I got from colleagues when I held my nine to five.

Even when I worked as an editor in the student writing center in college, most of the stuff that passes my desk didn’t even follow rudimentary rules of English. I saw some cover letters that looked like jokes.

I’m 24, and I’m beginning to think I’m part of the last functional generation. For that matter, my generation might worthless. The only thing that saved me was a professor who demanded I read the elements of style and practice proper English even in the most casual of written correspondence. To this day, even my text messages are grammatically and stylistically correct.

Am I the only one who won’t even use passive voice in an instant message conversation? Are the younger generations doomed to destroy the English language as we know it? Discuss.

they are. If you've ever played or seen Kingdom of Loathing (a goofy internet RPG) there is a quest to avenge the ghost of the english language that was slain by the foul IM's. it's just one of those things, although we could say that English died out when to word Forsooth went out of vogue

I agree that the internet has the potential to destroy language but i don't think it will. I'd like to hope that the damage only goes as far as the Internet or texting. For example, all of my friends text me in short 'how r u 2day' language, but obviously they speak normally and, as far as i'm aware, write in the same way. It is worrying, though. As a writer, I am determined to use our language properly (i often get mocked for not abbreviating my text messages), but even I ocassionally think 'lol' rather than laughing in my head. Hmm.

I think there's a marked difference between 'proper' English and the English we use in every day live, and that happens naturally, it's just a fact of life. Whether the Internet or text messaging is speeding up the process I don't know. I always try and practice proper English as much as possible (and I prefer to speak to people on the phone or e-mail rather then text meesaging) but I can see that it's more important in some parts of life then others.

But I deffinatly agree that it's worrying when people don't know proper grammer, whether they use it alot or not.