An article in Pacific-Standard by Raffaella Zanuttini, "Don't Fear Our Changing Language," quotes work by Patricia Irwin at the University of Pennsylvania explaining that changes in the language observed among the young follow normal English syntactical patterns:
"Young speakers extended the possible meanings of the adverb totally ('completely,' or 'entirely,' as in, 'That's totally burned') to include that of a so-called 'speaker-oriented adverb' conveying a strong commitment on the part of the speaker to the truth of a given sentence."
Then, she explains, "they modify the adverb with so, and leave it unpronounced. Every speaker of English can modify certain adjectives or adverbs (like tall, kind, quickly, precisely) with so, as in 'She drives so quickly that I worry about her.' Young speakers modify speaker-oriented totally with so ('Jamie has so totally dated that type of guy before!'). They can also leave totally unpronounced ('Jamie has so dated that type of guy before!'), where totally is present in the syntactic representation of the sentence but is silent."
The novelty of such usages may irritate, particularly if you sense that they indicate that time is leaving you by, but you understand them because they extend common meanings of words and follow normal grammatical patterns.
Defenders of the language pride themselves on appreciating its glories. They do not shrink from those lengthy crabbed paragraphs of Burton's Anatomy or Sir Thomas Browne. They savor both the balance of Addison and Steele and the compression of Samuel Johnson. They revel alike in Dickens's voluptuous descriptions and Hemingway's spare clarity. Twain's colloquialism does not shatter them, and Waugh's neo-Augustan polish does not put them off.
You would think that the ability to appreciate the variety and inventiveness of English in the past would translate into a recognition of the variety and inventiveness displayed in current language, an eagerness to see what fresh richness of expression may be springing up.
But they do not. Like Cicero complaining that no one spoke good Latin any more,* they deplore all change and wag their heads, bemoaning the degeneracy of the times.
It seems apposite to quote H.L. Mencken from The American Language once more:
"The error of ... viewers with alarm is in assuming that there is enough magic in pedagogy to teach 'correct' English to the plain people. There is, in fact, too little; even the fearsome abracadabra of Teachers College, Columbia, will never suffice for the purpose. The plain people will always make their own language, and the best that grammarians can do is to follow after it, haltingly, and often without much insight. Their lives would be more comfortable if they ceased to repine over it, and instead gave it some hard study. It is very amusing, and not a little instructive."
Give it some study; it will indeed be instructive.
*In Brutus: "Practically every one, unless his life was passed outside Rome, or some crudeness of home environment had tainted his speech, in those days spoke well and correctly. But lapse of time has brought about some deterioration in this respect both at Rome and in Greece. For as to Athens, so to our city, there has been an influx of many impure speakers coming from different places. It has created a situation which calls for a purge of language and the invoking of theory as an objective control or touchstone, not subject to change like the easily distorted rule of common usage."