On removing words from the undergraduate student vocabulary.

As a result of my fellowship with the Food Justice conference I'm not teaching this term. So, my interaction with undergrads is limited to passing moments. Also, due to my fellowship, I find that I am outside my office rather frequently these days walking to and from the law school. So, I have the opportunity to overhear many conversations (the proximity of the dorms to the law school makes this extremely amusing). I have been exposed to a whole host of exchanges, the majority of which sound something akin to this (which I overheard yesterday):

freshman #1: "hey, did you like do that paper yet?"

freshman #2: "yeah, I like worked on it, for like a little bit, like last night"

freshman #1: "I totally don't know like what I'm going to write"

freshman#2: "yeah, I like had a hard time with the first part, you know, like doing what the teacher said." "I like wrote, um...well, like, you know about the stuff from class." "wow, I like totally don't remember what I said." "and I had a hard time with my notes, because you know, like, how the teacher talks." "but then, I like, talked about that stuff from the book we read, you know like who the characters are and like, what they're doing and like what their saying"

freshman#1: "yeah, that's like a great idea, I hope I can say something like that too in my paper."

...and so on.

Which raises a number of questions for me. This conversation smacks of a lazy mind, I know because I am guilty of it too...I say "fuck" a lot and in place of other equally reasonable (and less offensive) words. But this use of "like" in a range of grammatical positions it was never intended for really bemuses me. Is it that we're so attached to 'soundbite' communication (twitter, facebook, bad television reporting, blogs and whathaveyou) that this is how we talk? Or is it simply the comfort of friendly conversation?
If we removed that one word from the student vocabulary would they cease to be able to describe things? link verbs together? start a sentence? exclaim in commiseration?

Also, does it even matter? Probably not...