IM Family

Have you ever been sitting in your office and sent an IM to someone sitting right next to you? Ever been stuck in a meeting and pass digital notes to each other instantly without persecution? If you're like me then you sure have!

I came across this entry today that talked about the growing use of IM inside of the home. At first, I didn't realize this was happening, most likely because I work from home so it only seems natural to reach me online, but it's quite interesting now that I think about it

Of course, this leads me to also consider that I get significantly less phone calls that I did back in the day. Naturally, all events aren't quite as earth shattering as they were in high school, nor are the dependencies on me within my own perr nework as strong as they were in college. But none the less, are we just going virtual and not looking back?

I remember an argument we had a few years back in the office about this very matter. One of the partners insisted that we were too disruptive trying to speak to him via IM. His main point was that he could multi-task while still participating in the conversation. He was a very fast typer so I can see where he felt this was the best way.

My concern with the IM-based meeting was more that there were simply so many things missing from a strictly IM conversation. These things include, but are not limited to, conversation pace, body language or tonal expression. A third partner at the discussion chimed in that we could speak approximately 140 words a minute as opposed to the 70-90 that could be typed (and I would caution that adding emoticons and other phonetics into your text stream only serves to slow things down).

And definitely, let's not consider the complete distraction that IM as a whole poses to us. Seriously, how can I expect to have your undivided attention when 20 other hands are waving?