fuck you, Stranger ^--^

The thing with me is that I don't understand a huge part of those short forms so I'm confused half of the time, or asking boring questions like "what THE HELL do you mean?" haha... I won't try to unravel the reason why people use it ... and I won't say I am not going to use them never in my life...I prefer not to, but who knows ! Bottom line : If I understand them, there is no problem... in spanish people use short forms too and I'm fine with that.

That people - English leaners like me, and espe. youth, no matter as native or ESL speakers like these 'Internet slang' terms is because it'll make them 'cool', 'special', 'oh, see I'm being different, I'm fasional', by which some people can muck around their 'vocabulary'. In a sense it's not a matter about 'short', but being different - if the formal word was 'U' all along since Shakespeare age, the popular spelling nowadays would have been 'YOU', I bet. You're not old-fashioned sir, but mature; thus the phenomenon that youth like them is completely understandable, the youth are questioning the old why they look so boring and uncreative. Perhaps one day, we all will spell the Second Person as 'U', and nobody will understand what 'you' is, like lots of modern people don't know what 'thou/ee' is. Anyway, we call it language r/evolution. But for now, if you use too much slang everywhere, others will consider that you like to embarrass people in communication - that's really unnecessary. No I don't feel irritated, English per se does.

As a native English speaker, yes, it irritates me. I never use those short forms, even in text messages. Even though I choose not to, it is socially acceptable to use short forms in text messages (well, it is called "text language" after all), but on the internet or in emails I do not find it acceptable at all. In my opinion it shows the writer as being lazy or poorly-educated.

I wrote an ENTIRE paper on this subject (and new social media's effects on youth language) for one of my linguistic anthropology papers last semester. Basically to be socially competent, kids these days need to learn how to use new social media and the language that goes with it. It really all comes down to peer pressure and the desire to "fit in" and "be cool" in my opinion. If a kid is going to have a healthy social life, they need to have a Facebook haha. So it doesn't really bother me when young people use it socially (and it is acceptable for anyone to use in texts regardless of age since there are limited characters). But other than that it depends on the social context if it is appropriate or not for adults: for example, I would never use abbreviation in a professional or academic context. Then it would be innapropriate. It wouldn't bug or offend me though if an adult used internet lingo in an inappropriate context. It would just be awkward more than anything and make the other person look socially incompetent. I also don't think that using internet lingo in any context reflects a general lack of intelligence. You should never judge someone's intelligence based soley on how they speak or present themselves with language. The way someone speaks is a learned behavior that is reinforced through socialization by one's peers. So one of the biggest ways to conform is to speak like your family, peers, community, etc. However using internet lingo in an inappropriate context can project maybe the inability or lack of social experience needed to recognize social appropriateness. I use internet lingo all the time (like with my friends) when I'm trying to make a joke or be funny. It really is a youth thing, like "monkey see, monkey do" ... "my friend uses lolz, so I'm going to use lolz too". But I also recognize the contexts in which not to use it. Nough said yo hahaha