IM Speak

I acknowledge and generally appreciate that language is directly affected by culture/society (and arguably vice-versa). Just within the last half a century, our jargon has evolved from "swell" (50's Stepford Wives) to "groovy" (Hippies) to "cool" to "rad" and so on...So, what does IM speak say about our current world? My answer: laziness. Do acronyms such as LOL, LMAO, and BRB really save us time or do we use these as cop-out auto-responses? Also, I have observed a disturbing trend of shortening adjectives (on a college campus) to create a "new" word - unfortunately, the remainder of the word makes no sense. For example:

jel = jealous
gorge = gorgeous
vom = vomit
totes or totals = totally
presh = precious

Next stop: "The Totes Awesome IM of the UK Lang." Who reads books anyways?

PS - This Wired.com article title is a little over-dramatic "Ravenous Clock Runs Backward, Scares Children"