A tearful, well thought out, edited missive expressing sympathy and support, while slower, beats the heck out of an e-mail "mom died. we're orphans." Granted the news is faster but gee!
Maybe it's that the need for speed (with apologies to Top Gun) outstrips the need for language and consideration, though I personally don't see the need. Texting begat twitter which will end, presumably, with simple dots or icons; perhaps a 21st century Morse Code? It is difficult to imagine shelves of books in the post-Twitter era; how long will it take to read 140 characters? Taken to extremes (which I'm wont to do), there shouldn't be any books since the author(s) will have tweeted the construction of the book all along and thus there's no point in printing it. Right?
At least the budget crunch will ease since library facilities will be able to be reduced to the size of a phone booth.
Maybe it's just a bad day! Cleveland 10, Yankees 2.
