Few things have changed the way teenagers live like instant messaging technology. It has replaced the telephone as the most popular method of interpersonal communication, and with good reason: it is faster, easier, and communication can occur between more than two people simultaneously. Instant messaging software can be used to send everything from music to pictures to last night's homework. An entirely different language exists for communicating online. Nothing shows the generation gap quite like the instant messenger phenomenon.

The main instant messaging software used is AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) or the default America Online instant messenger, which are compatible with each other. ICQ, popular when it debuted and still popular in Europe and Japan, is more progressive but not as popular. The instant messengers provided by the Microsoft Network (MSN) and Yahoo! are not nearly as popular as either AIM or ICQ.

Instant messaging, however, is a time burglar. As the results show, the vast majority of students use an instant messaging client. Many students spend several hours per day using this software. Making small talk over the Internet is hardly productive. Instant messaging software represents the paradox of technology - counterproductive uses for a productivity-enhancing tool.

Indeed, instant messaging represents regression in American society. Not only is this phenomenon taking place in the younger portion of America, but it is creating a vast dichotomy in expression. Acronyms like "lol" and "brb" have crept into our collective vocabularies. "lol" is the most dangerous of all of the byproducts of the instant messaging revolution; it represents all that is wrong with American youth today.

Certainly instant messaging has its place in America. The software itself does not represent a problem to the magnitude that the social repercussions represent a problem. Instant messaging represents the depersonalization of adolescents in America. We can carry on multiple "discussions" simultaneously, none of which require actual thinking. The minds of the collective youth of the nation degenerate with each message sent. Instead of traditional recreation - even constructive, educational pastimes - we turn to the computer for solace and "fun." Internet gaming is at a zenith in terms of usage. Computers are replacing other sources of social interaction in our lives, and instant messaging is the key example of this.

Is there a solution to this problem? Can progress be made from the massive - and sudden - regression caused by such software clients? Instant messaging seems to be more than a mere fad, but the proliferation of the software is hardly important. The social side effects are well in place. We sacrifice social interaction and self-enrichment for mindless drivel and silly acronyms. The damage to the America has been done; instant messaging has perpetrated a crime against the social development of a nation. There is little recourse to reverse this damage. The one thing that we can collectively do as an age group and as tomorrow's leaders is to read something - a book, a newspaper, or a magazine. It seems to be the only antidote to the psychosis caused by instant messaging and its Internet counterparts.