Texting

Like previous generations, today's teens seem to be constantly on the phone. But now they're doing a lot more texting than talking. Based on a survey and focus groups conducted with teenagers between 12 and 17, they found that text messaging is by far the most common way that kids communicate with each other, more than chatting on the phone, e-mailing, using social-networking sites, or talking face to face. People use abbreviations such as lol, ttyl, and idk. Do you think using these text messaging slang words ruining academic writing?