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Text/instant messages have evolved their own norms, as all language does. To many people, periods have a different meaning there. See e.g. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your...

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So again, people below 20 dictate what everyone else must do. It's a race to the bottom.

It's pretty common with people I know born from 1980 and beyond. Of course, it gets more common the closer their year of birth is to the aughts. But I guess you are right, everyone doing it today was under 20 at some point.

As someone born in the late 80s I've only heard about it from the press. I really sometimes omit periods in one-sentence text messages, but sometimes I don't, and it wouldn't come to my mind to ascribe any semantics to this.

My personal nitpick is people writing a stream of one-sentence messages without punctuation instead of a longer structured message - that definitely carries the connotation of unstructured thinking to me - but it doesn't have much to do with full stops per se.

Unstructured messages in a serious place is annoying, yes, but in a water cooler area it can set a more relaxed tone. It's a cultural thing and I'd never force someone to endure my style of communication in a place where it's not welcome.

It's just a different convention. I don't see how that makes it a 'race to the bottom'.

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