Make ITM Work

• I graduated college with a Business and English dual concentration.
• My mother is a Reading Specialist and English teacher.
• My brother is a journalist and editor for various online and print media.
• I’ve been told that I sound like a news reporter because I enunciate and speak clearly.

I like to think that my grammar is above average, and I get frustrated when simple errors are consistently made (Your vs Your; Their vs There; Me vs I; the list goes on…).

However, in a world where 140 characters is the maximum space within which to communicate, where acronyms run rampant in the C-suite, and texting has created a new alphabet, does this inevitably mean that above average communication skills will hold less weight over time? Are proper grammar and spelling things of the past?

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been a culprit of shortening my language to squeeze within Twitter’s 140 limit (I’m used to writing 10+ page English essays on Victorian Literature… give me a break!). Instead of writing a sentence that feels right to me, I have to abbreviate, cut, and edit my original thought to fit the digital medium.

In the future, will this new digital language be the basis of proper communication? Will we lose our ability to reflect and describe our best selves in writing now that we’re so wrapped up in the speed with which we communicate?

Is this even a bad thing…?

What do you think?

(Check out Clayton Crockett’s opinion here.)