Cost/benefit...

Why is it that some people can go to a top-tier school, graduate with a 3.8 GPA, and hold a professional job...yet can not type on a chat interface (i.e. aim, gtalk sametime etc.) without reverting back to their fifth grade english/grammar skills...some even possess the skill....or lack thereof...to revert back to a third grade level. At first, you may think that you do not know anyone that possesses these strange and meaningless skills....yet you do. Think about last week when you had a big deadline to complete by noon. As such, instead of signing on to gtalk immediately when you got to work, you completed your task, went to lunch, then logged on around 1pm. Yes...some people do possess the will power to set gtalk NOT to automatically sign-on when starting windows. At any rate so you log on at 1pm and are bombarded with messages of "Where were you?', "Everything okay?", and so forth. Then it comes...like a bird dropping that manages to fall precisely between every tree branch and land on to your newly pressed shirt..."Heyyyyyyy!".

Then the emotional roller coaster begins:

First you feel worried...”Oh no!”…did a friend of mine experience an epileptic seizure and fall face first on the keyboard?

Next comes happiness…as you believe that your 5 year old nephew who just learned to sleep without wetting his bed has decided to reach-out to you.

Then comes the bombardment…feelings of: frustration, anger, annoyance and alas suicidal thoughts…you finally realize that the six extra letter y’s were not a computer error…it was a human error…precisely it was a biological error in one’s DNA composition.

We all have gotten these messages…they come in different shapes, forms and styles: “Hiiiii!!!!” “I misssssssss you!!!”, “whatev”, “cuz”, “etc..

Back to my opening statement…these are not elementary, middle school, high school or even college students. I am referring to professional, career-motivated individuals with bachelors, masters and some even with doctoral degrees! Furthermore, I can understand/let it slide if this happens on rare occasions…but if an individual is in their late 20’s and speaks/chats in this nature on a daily basis…then something went wrong in their upbringing.

To play devil’s advocate, I possibly can see why people shorten words such as cause to ‘cuz’ or whatever to ‘whatev’…..I say possibly loosely...what I really mean is if I was 15 beers in and stammering drunk then I would justify the use of those terms. However, to drag out the last letter of a 2-5 lettered-word to the point where I have to scroll down in my chat window to see if you had anything meaningful to say in your ping…..that is simply ridiculous. What is the cost/benefit of having an unnecessary extra letters at the end of a word? It takes up more time to write (even though it’s a fraction of a second) and more importantly causes unnecessary anguish to the receiving party.

But wait…there is a solution. The fabulous people at AOL and Google thought of a solution that is quick, easy and absolutly free....the 'Block' feature.