Alarmists Anonymous

Today's Alarmist Topic: The Great IM Debate (Instant Messaging or Intellectual Minimalism?)

Well, maybe it's not so great. Nobody's really talking about it that I know of, but I feel that the point should be brought up all the same.

It came into my mind after reading about George Orwell's "Newspeak", the language of a grim totalitarian future, intended to minimize and eventually eliminate the capacity for abstract thought and individualism in the subordinates of the state. The premise behind the dehumanizing design of Newspeak is the idea that language is the primary mechanism by which human thought is driven. The richness and divergent possibilities of contemporary languages present the mind with more freedom than can possibly be exercised, stirring the soul into a torrent of ideas with the potential to spread like wild fire across the entire globe. Such is the danger perceived by the ruling class of the fascist led society wishing to crush the spirit of the ordinary citizens, reducing them to mere slaves.

Newspeak seeks to eliminate all unnecessary words, often by removing the opposite form of a word and modifying the remaining word to represent an inverse meaning. For example, "bad" becomes "ungood". "Great", "wonderful", "glorious", and "magnificent" become "moregood", or "goodest". Every conceivable emotion or condition that could once be expressed by a multitude of words is compressed into a single word with a few modifiers to express degree. This compression posits a grave threat to those who adopt it as their primary means of communication. Having a severely limited choice of words has a detrimental effect on one's manner of thinking. Eventually the scope of individualism is narrowed until each member of the populace is indistinguishable from each other by their ideals.

Basically, it sucks the life out of life and turns your mind into soup.

Now to the point. If the concept of "language compression" sounds vaguely familiar to you, it's probably because you've already seen it and experienced it's effects to a slight degree. I am referring to emoticons and other abbreviated expressions popularized by users of instant messaging software (myself being one of them). Are these not the precursory signs of the diminishment of intellectual engagement among the masses? Will we continue to forsake words like "funny", "humorous", "amusing", "hilarious", "witty", "silly", and "clever" for ":-)" or "LOL"?

They say IM brings people closer together. I think there's a double meaning in that. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid :-)