LOL, BRB, and OMG are just some of the things teens say in their conversations to their friends on the Internet, in their blogs or in text messages. And a new study released from the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 64% of teens are starting to use this electronic language in their writing assignments at school. "It has become more pervasive. More and more kids write at school like they right at home," said Stacy Fabrega, an English teacher at Leon High School.

Students say the Internet lingo has become like a second language. "I've done it before a couple, a lot of times. I'll be writing a paper and you use the letter "u" or something instead of the word. Or you know b/c for because or you know w/o for without just shortening it because you get lazy and don't want to type the whole thing," said Patrick Dix, a Junior at Leon High School. "If it, it helps a lot because it's real quick and easy so I tend to use it like OMG or like some other ones LOL for laughing out loud," said Philippe Schmitt, a Sophomore at Leon High School.

 
The study says 85% of teens use some type of electronic communication on occasion. This includes text messaging,
e-mails, instant messaging, and social network sites like myspace. As more and more young people are exposed to the abbreviated language, some think this issue will only get worse. And some teachers say when students mix this writing with formal writing it can become a real problem. "I don't know if they are spelling it incorrectly because they don't know or because it's just their style of writing. So we do address that," said Fabrega.

The study was based on 700 teens in the U.S. ages 12 to 17.