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February 9, 2009 12:44 PM PST

How the Web is killing my ability to communicate

by Don Reisinger
  • 95 comments

Thanks to the Internet, I can't communicate effectively anymore. Before I immersed myself in the world of blogs and vlogs, I communicated with others well. We'd talk about the weather, why the Yankees didn't have the pitching to turn things around last year, and the meaning of life. I'd make an argument, others would listen intently, and understand every word I said. It was great.

But now, things are different. I still have those conversations, it's just that now nowadays, I find myself shortening phrases like "I'll be right back" to "BRB" and using words that the majority of people just don't understand.

It has become so bad that my wife (my own wife!) has no idea what I'm saying. Over the weekend, I told her a quick story about what had just happened about three minutes before I went into the kitchen to find her cooking.

"Honey, you won't believe this," I told her, brimming with excitement. "I was just tweeting with some cyberbuddies and out of nowhere, a troll started attacking one of my friends. He took care of it really well. Twitter FTW!"

She stopped chopping the celery, looked up for only a second, shook her head, and went back to chopping the celery. She didn't have the words.

What happened to me? It wasn't a conscious decision to start throwing FTW around, but at some point over the last few months, it has happened.

Here's a list of all the words I've used on an almost daily basis for the last six months. It's scary...

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