blogs enhance literacy?

From what I read about “Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy”, the author makes some simple yet qualifying points. Her argument seems to be that blogging is good for learning and good for literacy. I think that a lot of her points that she brings up do make sense: blogs are easy to publish, allow people voices they wouldn’t have otherwise, and keep free speech alive. However, I wonder if perhaps blogging and other parts about Web 2.0, such as social sites and even things that connect us like text messaging, might be dumbing down the English language. In a lot of cases, especially with young people, we often type in slang, intentionally spell words wrong, use incorrect grammar and punctuation, all in the name of convenience and pop culture. I wouldn’t be surprised I there were a good number of young people out there who think the correct way to spell “you” is “u”. I think that the number one compliment you can give blogging is that it has made communication easier. No one feels the need to be correct in all of the things I mentioned, because they know people will understand whatever point they are making no matter how words are spelled or ideas expressed. So to simply say that blogging and Web 2.0 has done nothing but good things for learning would be incorrect in my opinion. I think this will only get worse, as communication progresses and blogs become even more rampant, we will see a decline in the understanding of correct grammar and proper language use.