Changing Language... Is Digital Language Harmful to Proper English?

In the article "Are Digital Media Changing Language", author Naomi S. Baron discusses the possibility that digital media is not the death of English, and is not having as significant an impact as one might think.
Take the following quote from the article for example:

• For example, in a study I did of college students' instant messaging conversation, out of 11,718 words, only 31 were "online lingo" abbreviations, and only 90 were acronyms (of which 76 were LOL). In a study of college students' text messaging, my colleague Rich Ling and I found a few more lexical shortenings; yet the grand total of clear abbreviations was only 47 out of 1,473 words, which is hardly overwhelming.

These numbers shocked me. While there is a host of digital acronyms and lingo terms available for use, in instant messaging and even texting, few were used.

I am not sure if these numbers are an accurate portrayal however, of overall digital language use.

Why? Because this survey was of college students.

Considering that I graduated high school in 2006 and did not own a computer or cell phone until college, polling me as a college student would in turn produce texts and instant messages with  low usage of digital language norms.

However, if you were to poll my 12 yr old niece who has owned a smart phone since the age of 8, you would find such usage of digital language to be much more prevalent.

The younger generations are growing up with this language as a part of everyday life whereas older persons have not.

For many of us, digital communication still has that 'new car smell'.

Let's consider the following quote:

• "Whatever the benefits of digital media, it is destroying the ability of young people to construct the basic unit of the English language... the sentence."

I agree to a point with this quote, that digital media lingo is threatening to the formal reading and writing processes of the English language.

 In this video, an English teacher shows just how much 'trouble' texting lingo has caused his students to have.
However, the girl at the end who texts constantly, is a published author and points out that the key to success in the 21st century is being fluent in both (formal language and digital).

While digital media does have many benefits and does encourage creativity and intellect, I think having a good understanding of how formal language interacts is still necessary to overall cognitive learning.

To me, learning how to balance both is the true test of linguistic ability.