With the growing prevalence of the social media, the old-fashioned ways of communication are fading from our lives. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has switched from writing blogs to updating status. It’s the same reason why people stopped telegraphing or writing letters.

Do you have to do that since you have a mobile phone with you all the time? You can text or email your loved ones, or write on his/her wall, re-tweet or comment on his/her status at anytime, anywhere. Why bother to buy an envelope and a postage stamp, and then write something you want to say on a piece of paper with real ink? That’s going to waste a lot of time. Since we are always – I’m not sure how true this is – busy with something, that’s just time we can’t afford to lose.

I’d like to maintain a blog. But a good blog needs something interesting to share, something for the followers to discuss. I have always been a movie fan. But do I have a lot to share about movies? I don’t think my thoughts about movies can gush out at any random moment. All I can say is: I love movies. I guess that’s not gonna interest any movie fans on the blogosphere.

So why not just send a tweet when I finish a good film and feel the urge of wanting to say something? That’s where micro-blogging comes in handy. I can just write down a simple line：

“Just watched Avatar @ Orchard. Can’t say how much I admire James Cameron’s epic work. Check it out yourself! I’m sure you’ll love it too!”

Oh, only 137 letters and takes less than one minute to type, but it will do the trick. And for sure all my friends, fans and followers will receive it instantly.

But I can’t just dump this message on my blog, because that will be very “inappropriate”. Since all the movie fans are looking for something deeper and more profound, they will just walk away from a movie review that comes with less than 140 letters.

I’ll give that a pass.

Don’t get me wrong, I like tweeting, and I know a lot of people do. It’s a good way to share thoughts, though I won’t say it’s a good way to communicate. After all, half the time tweets or status update is just one-way broadcasting. No matter how enthusiastic you are about something, you can’t expect all of your real or netizen friends to respond to your random rant every time, can you?

Yet tweeting and status update have changed the way we communicate. They have changed the way we write too. The other day I read an article about the changes that modern technologies have brought into our lives on Fortune Magazine. The author cracks jokes on the short forms invented by the busy professionals, or tech-savvy kids who can’t keep their hands off their electronic gadgets.

It lists a lot of examples of short forms on the web, particularly on micro-blogging sites. How do you convey your message in a limited space of 140 letters every time to all of your followers? Obviously you can’t do that by typing every word correctly, because that will just take up too much space.

So, “smart” people get creative by using simple words or letters to substitute long words or even sentences. Take a look at these:

OIC – Oh, I see;
CU – see you;
TTYL – Talk To You Later;
NP – No Problem.

All these can be easily understood if you are a frequent user of the social media. Text messages and Twitter have become the major platforms for these short forms to flourish.

There will always be a debate about whether it’s a good or bad thing. But it’s proof that technologies have not only provided us the ease of doing something, but have also brought some unexpected – or should I say “expected” – side effects to the society. You don’t expect your grandpa to understand what you are trying to say by replying a message like this:

Msg rcved, Gran, NP! Btw lemme know wat u think abt my dinner plan @ ur place, pls. I”ll TTYL. Lv:)