What I find strange is the suggestion that written communication makes these things essential, when for hundreds if not thousands of years people have got by, using words and punctuation to do the trick.

I'm not objecting to people choosing to use the "acronyms", or for that matter the smilies and so forth. But suggesting that somehow we have less time to spare than our ancestors strikes me as a strange logic. We've got more free time, after dealing with the necessities of survival, than anyone before us has ever had, possibly leaving aside royalty.