Is technology blunting our communication skills?

Here is the artile from wired: Ah, A Warmth of Human Contact.

[Although Email and IM] make communicating across time and distance a breeze, it's still the quality of the communication that counts.

It's a paradox of the technology that even as the world shrinks, our actual communication skills are eroding. Instant communication encourages superficiality in the way we talk to each other.

If I've been slighted, I'd prefer a face-to-face apology, or even waiting a few days to receive a handwritten, heartfelt note
sent by traditional post, rather than a glib, "My bad, dude," e-mailed as a knee-jerk reaction by someone whose three-second attention span has already absolved him, in his mind, of any further responsibility by the time he hits Send. It's too convenient. It trivializes the act of contrition.

I rely heavily on IM and email to do my work and I can surely say that my writing has gotten sloppier due to the convenience and time presure. Could that be another reason to keep blogging where at least I gather my thoughts first and then try to present them in a somewhat more organized way?