The Instant Message: A Young Nob's Game?

[mishalak]

I remember when the minute I turned on whatever instant message program was hot, AIM, ICQ, MSN, etc. I would instantly connect with people. And when I went to send an instant message I'd find a fair number of people who were available and would respond to an IM. Now... not so much. For every time I turn on GAIM, the client program I use, I will get a message once out of dozen or more. And the vast majority of people in my list never log on, have away messages set all the time, or don't respond when I send a message. I'm thinking perhaps IMs are one of those things that you do for a while and then grow out of. So if I wanted to keep connecting like that I'd have to keep working at replacing the people I connected with every few months or something.

So I am wondering if other people are having the same experience with instant messages. Does anyone IM you? Do you have about forty people on your list who never log on anymore? Do you feel like you should put the rest in a category for people who are constantly logged in but never available?

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

I am, and a bulk of the people I chat with are, invisible the vast majority of the time.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

But you have people you chat with. This does nothing good for my old parinoia that the reason no one talks to me is that no one wants to talk to me but they just don't want to tell me this.

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

I initiate a lot, and very few conversations go past a mutual good morning. I have noticed that consistent light good mornings lead to longer conversations over all, like priming a pump, but it takes a little while.

You are always welcome to talk with me. If nothing else, I think we can talk clothes and cooking?

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, "maybe they just don't want to talk with him" was my initial thought -- because "..to me" would be my first response if I'd done something like that.

More realistically, the slucegate phenomenon is a much more likely probability -- there's a limit to the number of these small pleasures that most people can handle, and the most common solution seems to be to cut off the whole category. At least it is, for me, in other things -- I've never used IM &cet because I'm terrible at what's essentially superficial socializing, and am sure I wouldn't be able to think (or type) fast enough to make such interchanges worthwhile for either party.

Keeping the social gears oiled isn't unimportant, certainly, but there are distinct downsides to over-doing it, and I suspect that most people consider IM to be overkill, once the novelty has worn off. "Just because it can be done is not necessarily a good reason for doing it", as it were. So rein-in your paranoia, and maybe consider joining an APA with four Mailings per year.