It’s slightly less addictive than cocaine, more insidiously benign than “SpongeBob SquarePants” and will be the end of the civilization as we know it.

Its name is AIM (AOL Instant Messenger, but only losers and skanks call it that), and it will destroy us all.

That might be a gross overreaction, but I am sure the characters that populated the “The Matrix” and “Terminator” franchises believed the same thing at one point. Look how that turned out for them.

I am not suggesting that AIM suddenly will manifest itself as a network of intersections between input and output leads or that it will launch a civil defense system that will plunge us into nuclear war. Worse, it will create a society where people only will talk in acronyms, blocking a person will be a capital offense and the fate of entire nations will be decided by the wording of an away message written in all of 30 seconds.

I can just see it now. President George Bush is talking to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il when he receives the highly suspect “I am away from my computer right now,” which is the “I can’t go out with you on Saturday night because I am washing my hair” of away messages. Bush, stunned by the unoriginality of Jong-il, orders the invasion of North Korea because he suspects they have WMDs. Notice that WMD is an acronym. Coincidence? I think not.

It’s not just the political landscape that will suffer, but the cultural one as well.

This is “Romeo & Juliet” now:

Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I shall no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet: But thy name that is my enemy, thou art thyself though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. Oh, what’s in a name?

This is “RJ2.0” as it will be known as in the AIM Nation:

SeXyJewL13: You there Romeo?

Auto response from RomeoMountU: BRB … No. 2.

RomeoMountU returned at 4:50:26 PM.

RomeoMountU: A/S/L?

SeXyJewL13: It’s me.

RomeoMountU: JK. I knew it was U. What up?

SeXyJewL13: Funny. Anyway, I’m all like it doesn’t matter if you are a M and I am a C. We should hook up ASAP.

RomeoMountU: Cool. I GTG. L8er.

Ugh. We need to curb this gradual stupefying of America’s youth before it is too late by making some additions to the University Judicial Code.

1. People who use smiley faces more than once in the course of a conversation will summarily be executed and then fed to those annoying mutant rats from Quizno’s commercials.

2. It is now illegal to use the term BRB if you are going to be gone for more than five minutes. Offenders will be punished by being forced to become Boston Red Sox fans when the New York Yankees pay to reanimate Ted Williams and sign him to a $100 million contract.

Still think I am crazy about AIM taking over the world if these new regulations aren’t implemented? Keep LOL, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Warning Received:

You’ve been warned by Greg Feltes. Your warning level has increased from 0 percent to 100 percent.