Generations & Internets: Collapsing Standards or Just Change?

When I was growing up on usenets and dial-in BBS's, yes there was the birth of the troll, but there was a higher standard of communication. You treated your messages as you might treat a written letter. Now? Not so much. I'm barely into my 30's and I'm feeling what every person before me has felt: the degradation of communication, the irascibility of the younger generation.

For example, take the now-high-ended ideal that someone might spell words correctly in a proper email. Then degrade it with txt-msg'ng language, reduce it to a Facebook pseudo-meme liek [sic] "On 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 I'm going to make the most monumental wish evar" as one of the 500 trite pseudo-groups you now "like" and post the following jpeg I found in my daughter's feed:



Teaching children to use Photoshop without teaching them art is like teaching someone to fire a rifle without referencing the basics of morality.

You can quote me on that.

(For reference, many "art" classes in schools are now completely computer-based and grammar is not a great focus.)


So how does this saga end? Do we hope that high school and college education (along with our involvement) can properly educate our children - despite social norms - and teach them to maintain standards of communication? Or are we doomed to the fate of Idiocracy?

ikr

Any thoughts/feedback would be appreciated.