On the decline of the state of written communications

I'm a semi-professional writer. I don't expect everyone to be able to communicate with the same degree of skill that I do. But in a world where written communication has become so widespread and so easy, I /do/ expect people to take some care and make the effort to craft their words instead of butchering them. But more and more frequently, I see the signs of devolution in the written language.

It's not a simple case of people spelling things incorrectly. Spelling mistakes happen and not every application has a built in spell checker. My father has a PhD in English Lit and his spelling is just short of atrocious.

It's not a matter of grammatical errors. The vernacular is the common language and with the exception of formal events, I wouldn't expect people to speak in a formal manner. Hell, even Shakespeare didn't write in 'absolutely grammatical' English.

My biggest peeve is people who don't even bother to make the effort. I'm sick to death of all of the 'r u's and 'its so kool i cant belieev it lol's that are mucking up the open text forums of the world. Call me a snob, but I feel very strongly that it's important to make the effort to use the language properly.

One of the most beautiful things about the English language is its complexity. It can be used for subtle word play, for lyrics, and to express abstract thoughts. It has taken/stolen from many other major languages to form a very special means of communication. But it seems like people are losing their love of the language in the minor convenience of being able to type 'r u' instead of 'are you'. In and of itself, that would be fine. But it leads into further laziness in the use of language which ends up with a nearly incomprehensible pile of pseudo-words making up a pseudo-thought.

I despair for the state of the world when people become too damn lazy to learn to type a few extra keystrokes in order to make their thoughts something a little more special than 'lol'.