Instant Messaging is Convenient, Fun, Sure To End Civiliztion
By Cory Forsyth
Opinions Writer

Today’s generation has more methods of communication than any before it. With the myriad technological innovations of the past decades, and the advent of the internet in the last few years in particular, there are a host of open channels through which the people of today can interact: We’ve moved from transatlantic fiber-optic cables to nationwide cellular networks that bounce signals off satellites to every region of the globe. Personal, handwritten correspondence has atrophied under the aegis of a digital public that has a faster, cheaper and easier alternative—e-mail—virtually hardwired into its fingertips. Numerics-only pagers gave way to text-based pagers gave way to voice-only cell phones gave way to voice-and-text cell phones. It’s even possible to voice-chat (and video-chat!) online now. Pretty much wherever anyone is on earth, she is potentially contactable through text, audio or video.

None of these methods, however, has captured the zeitgeist of today’s young culture quite the way instant messaging has. Zillions of instant messages a day are slung back and forth, both intra-campus and into the wider world. In most other developed countries, text-based messaging via cell phones is similarly popular. In Australia, for example, over two million SMS (short message service) messages are sent daily. The populace relies on “texting” each other, and “safe text” parties are held, where the attendees have a number affixed to their back that onlookers can use to anonymously message them.

I personally have an ambivalent, love-it-and-hate-it, junkie’s fascination with and dependence on AOL Instant Messenger. There was a time freshman year when, frustrated with the unprecedented levels of procrastination it inspired, I had a hall-mate encrypt the software on my computer and promise not to tell me the password until after the weekend.

There are some positive aspects to instant messaging that I don’t want to entirely gloss over. IMs keep people in contact who otherwise probably wouldn’t be able to stay in contact. Instant messages beat out telephone calls for the same reasons that email beats handwritten letters: IMs are faster (usually), easier and cheaper than telephone calls. They also provide a non-invasive way to find out information about others (i.e., through away messages, profiles, etc.). Clearly, instant messaging facilitates a lot of communication between individuals.

But what of the quality of that communication? Depending on which study you believe, during interpersonal communication as much as ninety percent of the message will be non-verbally transmitted. Text messaging neuters those extra-textual aspects of a conversation; online, everyone “sounds” the same. This makes IM ideal for utilitarian tasks, such as arranging when or where to meet for dinner, say, but it’s a pretty poor excuse for a real conversation, something which I think a lot of people tend to forget.

Maybe it’s that, as a culture, we are just so keyed in to profit-maximizing, efficiency-at-all-costs thinking, that we’ve already become inured to impersonal communication channels so that we don’t really think about what we might be missing from our IM conversations. We just concentrate on how easy they are to use.

Another problematic aspect of IMing is how removed one is, physically, from the other participant in the conversation. Chatting away with someone from the comfy confines of one’s own little dorm room, it’s easy for the chatter and chattee to come out of character, because it’s often easier to say audacious things, as well as salacious things, when you’re not face to face. It’s not coincidental, then, that most of my contacts online are girls. I took a straw poll of my friends and found that it was generally the same way for them as well.

I find that “safe” element to be fairly insincere, but something that is nonetheless entrenched in the nature of IM conversations. But flirting online, or, worse, wooing online, seems downright cowardly. I foresee weird psychological issues for the generations of kids that grow up spending more time flirting online than in real life. Being rejected to one’s face is an important character-building experience.

I could go on down the list, badmouthing IMing, but the truth of it is that I don’t hate instant messaging. I don’t like the weird phenomenon of people who ordinarily wouldn’t really talk to each other finding some remote common ground online, and I don’t like the self-justifying dependence that some people (myself, at times, included) seem to have on it.

The fact is, however, that instant messaging is a great tool—albeit with a rather limited use. I’m grateful that it exists because it allows me to stay in contact with friends and family, such as my sister. No amount of IMming, however, can substitute for a long, heartfelt conversation on the phone. And I’ll always still miss her until I’m able to go home and give her a hug.