An interesting study shows that “Textese” (or “Textspeak”) isn’t ruining the English language:
Mobile phone text-message abbreviations and simplifications are not ruining our spelling, but they do take much longer to read and understand than conventional English, a small Australian study has shown.
University of Tasmania lecturer Nenagh Kemp asked 55 undergraduate students to compose, and then to read aloud, text messages in English and in “textese.”
While students were significantly faster using textese, it took almost half the number of students twice as long to read these messages aloud than messages written in proper English.
