“It is nothing to LOL about: Despite best efforts to keep school writing assignments formal, two-thirds of U.S. teens admit in a survey that emoticons and other informal styles have crept in.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, in a study released Thursday, also found that teens who keep blogs or use social-networking sites like Facebook or News Corp.’s MySpace have a greater tendency to slip nonstandard elements into assignments.

The results may give parents, teachers and others a big - a frown to the rest of us - though the study’s authors see hope.”

Read full story