rant by request: instant messenger

[keryx]

I just re-started using IM a few weeks ago, since a few critical things had to happen before I could really get behind instant messaging, namely: having my own laptop connected to a speedy wireless network.

Now that I have that, and the novelty is starting to wear off, I can say this without a doubt: instant messaging is stupid. Yes, I realize it's an efficient means of getting quickly in touch with someone who can be counted on to be online, and that it allows you to have simultaneous conversations with 10 people if you want, while you download music. It's faster than email. It's easier than text messages on your phone (which are also stupid, but no one asked me to rant about that).

But. It's stupid. As a medium, it limits the types of conversation you can have, a fact that few people who use it seem to realize. It's great for quick q&a kinds of things, for planning a get-together, for entertaining quips, and nothing else.

Just to tie this in some way to what petite_tadpole asked for, here are my thoughts on people who don't follow implicit IM etiquette, for instance leaving a conversation mid-flight: so what? What function does telling someone that you're about to stop sending them entertaining quips really serve, other than to verify that you've not just been shot?

None. None at all. Thus, IM is stupid.

This rant has been intentionally inflammatory and may or may not reflect my actual opinions. Just assume it does, and if I've said something you dislike, that I'm talking about you.

Comments

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I actually rather dislike IM myself, but not for any of the reasons you stated.

"As a medium, it limits the types of conversation you can have, a fact that few people who use it seem to realize. It's great for quick q&a kinds of things, for planning a get-together, for entertaining quips, and nothing else."

I pretty much conducted an entire two-year relationship, and three-year ongoing best friendship, with chisparoja via AIM (minus two in-person visits of two weeks' and three weeks' duration). Due to this, I can tell you from EXTREMELY EXTENSIVE experience that IM is a very, very functional medium via which to (1) argue nonstop for days on end, (2) have really hot cybersex, and (3) have terribly deep soul-baring conversations that reduce both of you to tears of happiness. Therefore, I must insist that you have no idea what you're talking about when you make assertions like the above.

"Just to tie this in some way to what petite_tadpole asked for, here are my thoughts on people who don't follow implicit IM etiquette, for instance leaving a conversation mid-flight: so what? What function does telling someone that you're about to stop sending them entertaining quips really serve, other than to verify that you've not just been shot?"

Yeah, I tend to agree. chisparoja gets special privileges with me so I wouldn't sign off from a conversation with em without stating first that I was leaving, but in conversations with anyone else I frequently just stop responding after a while when a convenient opportunity arises (i.e., when the last thing the other person said was a statement that doesn't really require a reply), and then once the silence has gone on for long enough, IM etiquette ceases to require you to announce where you're going when you sign off, because there's no longer a conversation really "in progress" at the moment.

But now, as for what I really hate about IM: I hate the fact that if you just want to find one person, you can't easily arrange to sit around watching for them to come online unless you make yourself visible to 200 other people with whom it isn't a high priority for you to converse with at the moment, so when what you really want to do is work on something else until a specific person shows up, you tend to get messaged by 20 other people who won't let you get anything done. Granted, there are ways around this if you take the time to either register different IM names for different people and try to keep anyone from finding out what your other IM names, or if you individually block and unblock a few dozen names from your buddy list before each time you sign on, according to which of them you currently want to talk to - but those strategies are a lot of trouble, and they carry a risk of people getting offended if they find out you temporarily blocked them or didn't give them one of your screennames that you did give to someone else.