'r u online?': the evolving lexicon of wired teens

She has noticed that her oldest son, who's normally quite shy around girls, feels more comfortable talking to them online - a positive, she thinks.

A negative, though, is that their grammar is becoming atrocious, and Net lingo is starting to show up on school assignments: "They talk with these abbreviated words and run-on sentences with no punctuation. I call it speed talking, and it's starting to carry over into their homework," she says.

That's an issue that teachers around the country have been struggling with recently as instant messaging grows in popularity.

Another double-edged consequence comes in a culture of multitasking. Mrs. Thomas's oldest son spends about three hours on instant messenger each night. He'll talk to friends, download music, do homework, surf the Internet - all at the same time.

Because of the Internet, experts say, kids today are able to multitask like no other generation. But with that frenetic multitasking, others say, comes easy distraction - and the shrinking of already-short attention spans.

Garret says he gets onto IM when he's doing homework, and manages about eight different tasks at one time. Showing incredible focus - or frenzy - he flips from one screen to the next, rapidly firing off messages while surfing the Net and gabbing on the phone. (No, IM hasn't replaced the phone entirely.)

Now a high-school freshman, he says most of his friends were on IM by junior high, and he picked up the lingo as he went along. New terms get passed between friends, and different groups and regions of the country have their own IM lexicons, with particular acronyms, abbreviations, and emoticons that mirror their inside jokes and experience.

Tonight, he tells a friend that he's "j/c." She asks, "what is j/c."

"just chillin'," he types, certain that she will use it in the future.

Experts say the intent of lingo - in any generation - is to signify "inness" with a particular group. And while teens have long pushed the boundaries of language, they are now doing it in written form.

"This is a new kind of slang, a written slang. We've never had anything like it before," says Robert Beard, professor emeritus of linguistics at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., and creator of yourDictionary.com.

Some parents worry that teens could get into trouble by talking to so many different - and sometimes unknown - buddies. Certainly, that's happened. But Dr. Randall says he found in his study that teens are quite aware of that issue and know how to protect themselves.

Even with his large buddy list, Garret gets it. He begins chatting with someone he hasn't talked to in awhile, and when that person attacks him and uses profanity, he quickly ends the conversation.

"I'm not talking to him anymore," he says, slightly shaken, and then uses the software to block all incoming messages from that screen name.

"I guess it's time to clean out my buddy list."

IMAO

"In My Arrogant Opinion."

AFK

"Away From Keyboard."

(::[ ]::)

Emoticon for a bandaid - an offer of comfort.

:-P

Emoticon that means you're being sassy or sticking out your tongue.

8-)

Emoticon showing you're wearing glasses - or acting smart.

Source: www.yourDictionary.com

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