Is Twitter Making Us Dumberer?

It used to be we had blogs to release our grammatically incorrect thoughts and ramblings; they weren't exactly the best thing to the English language, but at least they usually had some substance and occasionally made us think. True, they have made teens dumb, but it's not like they weren't heading in that direction anyway, so I don't think blogs were completely to blame.

Now, however, there is new cause for alarm with the increasingly popular website Twitter. For every new person who subscribes to Twitter the message gets louder: it is socially acceptable to talk in a fragmented txt message language that only sometimes makes sense (Shaq's Twitter account is a perfect example of this).

Like most people, I firmly believe that it's better to jump on a socially irresponsible bandwagon, then be left in the dust, so I joined Twitter.

Now, however, I wonder if perhaps Twitter makes us dumb enough? Surely, there has to be something out there that is a dumbed down version of Twitter for people who can't stand the thought of reading 140 characters?

Can someone please create an emoticon version of Twitter where users are allowed to only post 5 characters? Can someone please make us dumberer?

To help you get started, here's 9 emoticons that should put on the right path:

:-) Happy
:D Laugh
=O Shocked
:-( Sad
:P Tongue Out
:/ Annoyed
;-) Wink
<3 Love :? Confused