Our Grammar and the Text Messaging Era

I know it's not just me batting my kids around over the whole "bc" for because and "2" for any form of two, to, or too, but I can honestly say I feel like it's me against the entire AT&T company these days. I can't tell how many times I've seen students (and yes, even some of my teachers) use this shortened, text-messaging era language to communicate in formal papers. It drives me crazy. I can honestly say that for the last two years, I've only seen the top of my fourteen-year-old sister's head at our family gatherings. I've seriously forgotten what color her eyes are--- simply because she's one of those text-era people who send three-thousand plus text messages a month! I probably sound like a grandma here, but what ever happened to just writing a letter or picking up the phone? There's been a serious amount of degeration in our language with the onset of the texting era, and I am saying that I can see it now as I grade our children's papers...... OMG!