Tao of Lunacy

IM (with or without voice) is my primary communication with friends. I’m almost never without one messenger program running - on occasion, two or three. I’m finding the widely accepted shortcuts of the chat world spill over into my everyday life. Sometimes I’m not even sure in what time zone I’m operating!

Of course, in text, keystroke efficiency is paramount. You = u, your = ur, are = r, even the tiny word be shortens to b, and so on and so on. Spelling is almost inconsequential presuming the point is conveyed clearly. Capitalization and punctuation often take a backseat in the quest to save a few strikes on the mighty keyboard. Throw in the wonderful emoticons WLM offers and up opens a whole new world! Sentences can be constructed of witty little pictures and keyboard shortcuts. I personally find it rather amusing when 3 or 4 emoticons pop up in 1 short sentence yet I understand perfectly the other person’s meaning, even if the emoticons don’t represent actual words but merely pop up due to keystroke sequence.

Here’s where I’m starting to have a problem. I find myself taking the same liberties when typing emails, especially at work, or working on my blog. It takes single-minded concentration and tremendous focus to make my fingers type whole words. The desire to add “lol” is often overwhelming! (I wonder.just how many millions of times a day those three little letters are used?) The Chatus IMus area of my brain (I know you’ve never heard of it before, but I’m convinced it exists somewhere between Broca’s area (in the opercular and triangular sections of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe of the cortex) and angular gyrus (in the parietal lobe, that lies near the superior edge of the temporal lobe, and immediately posterior to the supramarginal gyrus) is starting to erase the grammatical lessons drilled into my hard drive…..oops! I mean….brain, during grade school. It’s getting serious when out of my mouth, in the middle of a conversation, pops “hold a mo I’ll brb.” Not only are my fingers trying to take shortcuts, now the wiring from brain to mouth is apparently affected as well.

I think my Techno OCD may be mutating. Perhaps it’s VLDD (Virtual Language Dysfunctional Disorder) of the IM variety. I’m quite sure it won’t be found in the latest Devereux Scales of Mental Disorders (DSMD) but I’m reasonably sure it does exist. (Alright once again you caught me - I made VLDD up too LOL!) But one day you just might see it defined as something like this: “Language disorder characterized by patient’s inability to communicate in other than Instant Messenger-like fashion. Symptoms including (but not limited to): rapid and repetitive succession of abbreviations written and/or verbal (especially the use of lol, brb, and lmao); fixation on emoticon use; patient’s referral to typing speed as cpm (characters per minute) as opposed to wpm (words per minute); innate ability of patient to understand others communicating via same IM language; often seen in conjunction with Technological OCD.”

There is a theory, people able to speak multiple “languages” have more grey matter in their brains. This leads me to the conclusion their brains are larger. Since tests have proven Einstein’s brain was 15% larger in some areas than the average person’s - perhaps the ability to effortlessly integrate this rapidly emerging form of communication indicates some higher level of brain function. Thus those of us immersed in the world of IM have higher intelligence.but I’ll leave it to you to decide if you agree with me - or not

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