Guess I'm too old

What can I say, I just don't get chat and text lingo!!!!!

*To assist any readers that are over the age of 25, I've included the full meanings.
l0l (laughing out loud) - What happened to "haha", "that's funny"..... besides, how many people are actually laughing out loud when they type that. They're usually silently chuckling! Liars!
rofl (rolling on the floor laughing) - Ooooh, let's expound on lol!
brb (be right back) - I was informed that it's practically a common verb!!
nm (never mind) - It probably takes me a full minute to realize it's not a typo.
np (no problem) - I always think it's supposed to be "no".
whatev - So, now we're so lazy we can't even say "er".

There's of course a gazillion more, these are just the most common ones I run into. I just don't understand why it's necessary to shorten our words that much in an effort to speed up our conversations. What happened to good old-fashioned letters! (My sister will be rolling her eyes and groaning at this point.) There is hope for me yet, though. I've slowly been adapting to these rapidly changing times and have actually started recognizing these "words" when the pop up. I've even used a few in their proper context! Now if I could actually write a text in less than five minutes. Oh well, baby steps.