I expect this has been brought up before on this thread, but I just had to post this:-
Husband and I were in a Costa café yesterday having a nice cuppa. At the table next to us were two young women having a natter (rather loudly). What struck me was the incessant repetition of the word 'like'."I was ..like...why?" "So she was ...like...I don't know" etc etc ad nauseam. Wouldn't it be simpler to use the word 'said'? For example, "I said, "I don't know." and so on.