The English language has long contained informal colloquial language in its ~1300 year history. The digital age, whilst methods of communications have changed it is important to regard that the necessities of its users have changed, thus the English language has evolved to fit the needs of its speakers.

Whilst the age of English is often debated to be more than 1300 or more than 1500 years depending on the definition of when English began. In its middle English form, it is vaguely comprehensible to most people, however old English is not even remotely close to modern comprehension. Now my opponent asserts some parts of English have 'never changed', that is not the case as ignoring its Scandinavian origins, roughly 30% of lexemes of English ARE in fact, FRENCH derived post 1066 from the battle of Hastings [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-language_influences_in_English]. Therefore, I would strongly oppose calling English 'having the exact same words and proverbs'. Slang terms however HAVE been catered for throughout its history which remains an indisputable fact. For example the colloquialim "cag-mag" (meaning decayed meat) have been out of date for a while and can be considered an archaism. As for accessibility, linguistics views the concept of IN GROUPS which my opponent has so conveniently neglected which are, when certain groups use language ONLY they can understand in order to gain covert prestige and build rapport. Linguist David Crystal has STRONGLY asserted his saying of the 'freedom of the net' for this very reason on how language change is a process accelerated by the digital world, and that language change does not prevent HALF THE POPULATION FROM GAINING ACCESS to which my opponent has provided no evidence to substantiate their claim.

In recent years, slang by Gen Alpha has risen BY 120%, AND 50% for Gen Z [https://www.psychreg.org/older-generations-struggle-keep-up-searches-gen-z-gen-alpha-slang-surge/], which, whilst seemingly causing elders to struggle in keeping up, are IN LINE with the principles of prescriptivism and natural language evolution by linguistics. This misunderstanding by elders provides NO insight whatsoever into whether language CHANGE causes a decrease in literacy rates. For the opponent's case to even HOLD, there must exist some 'correct' form of English, however, with the emergence of New Englishes, such as Singlish with Hokkien borrowings such as 'lah' and 'dun' in " I dun lah", which provides a perspective into how different cultures reflect their identities and values through, there seems to only be a relative difference in the manner in which English is being used. Since this appears to be the case, there would exist no way possible for English to be 'corrupting written literacy among teenagers'. Therefore, language evolution, as stated by linguists such as David Crystal, is a natural process which we should ALLOW. Judges, please consider that whilst the opponent attempts to critique my evidence they have presented no verifiable means of their own. I rest my case.