Is the English language being "dumbed down", and if so, why?

[DemPGH]

I'm one of those people who believes that there's a time and place for everything. There's a time for formal speech and dialogue (so it helps to be able to use it if one is in a situation where it is demanded), a time for text abbreviations, and a time for slang and so forth. I think technology and an increase in informal exchanges has helped "dumb" it down, and it accompanies the general direction of culture - that is to become increasingly casual and informal. So speech follows. It's probably not good or bad, it just happens.

But could peoples' vocabularies generally be better? Sure. They, however, tend to learn and to use what they need to - the English language of course being quite vast and, yes, "living."