Are we becomming twitter-brained?

Is all this recent preoccupation with text messaging just a fad, or is it going to become a more permanent feature of our culture. If so, how do you think we will be transformed. Will it shorten our attention spans further? Could it pose problems for people relating to people in real life?

Will it destroy the English language? Or the art of writing letters? Will it decrease our tolerance for people and things who do not keep us immediately entertained in the moment? Will our desire to share our most insignificant and transient thoughts make us shallow and narcissistic—or drown out more serious discourse? Will it make us even more boorish and uncivil?

I remember AOL chat rooms back in the early 90s where no matter what the topic, the depth of the discussion seldom got much further than Whassup? But look how far we have come with sites like Fluther.