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.

[phoenyxashe.livejournal.com]

I've got Trillian running right now, which manages multiple messaging services at once... which is nice, giving me one program running instead of many, and less strain on my computer.

At this precise moment, I'm connected through it to four services, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, and MSNIM, the last being a requirement for work. Out of those four services, and I don't want to think about counting the number of total people there, 17 people are listed online. 2 of those are actually just one person. 5 of those, including my double-listed friend, are listed as away.

One of those people is my best friend, and we talk daily. Me being in Colorado in him in Manitoba, IMs are a godsend. Another one is more local, and we don't talk so much via IM, but he uses it as a low level barometer... so long as he sees me online, he knows I'm doing moderately okay. Another one is a friend I dated back before I dated Blair... and though I see him online daily, we usually only talk about once or twice a week, as our schedules don't always mesh. After that, there are maybe two or three others that I talk to with any consistancy, and the rest are just... there. One of those has no memory tag coming to mind.

The ones for work I didn't count, as they are required.

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

I think it's partly that the novelty is over, and partly it seems that almost everyone I know has become more busy and has less free time since the IM phenom debuted.

For myself, I no longer have any IM access at work, at all, and I'm trying to spend less time on the internet at all when I'm at home. I have too many meatspace tasks awaiting my attention.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

IMs were standard when I was on AOL and I turned mine off. I spent a lot of my time programming our forum and I didn't want to be interrupted. I told people they could email me. Plus, it wasn't just people I knew. Early on, I was one of the few women and I got IMs from lots of strange(r) guys, and then since I had that I ran the Science forum in my profile, I got lots of IMs from kids who wanted homework help.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

You are the only person I ever IM with, and that's because Google's version is connected to the mail page. I find IM slow and intrusive, so I don't mind.

[bureinato.livejournal.com]

I got IM because a bunch of friends of mine were all into it, and now they've all vanished.

Our schedules don't overlap as much as they used to. And you are one of the main people I IM.

[ajournalguy.livejournal.com]

I still use AIM, and talk woth my best friend - who moved away - by IM practically every day. I see you on a lot too, but you don’t like, or even know, me very much, so I deliberately refrain from greeting you.

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

not at all. but then i do most of my business through IM as well as social interaction. i often have three or four or five sessions going at once. the thing i rarely use anymore is...
the telephone!