Always on vs. Sporadic Use of IM clients I’ve been debating lately what to do with my “online presence”, so to speak. For a long time, I would leave my IM client, Adium, on all of the time – making myself always available to chat with friends, or if nothing else, as a way to be reached even when I wasn’t around. It was, and is, a great way to have that “always on” presence.
Whether through AIM (wtmcgee) or MSN (daniel@ipsmusic.com), I was always reachable in one form or another. Lately though, I have gotten tired of being hassled all the time by people every time I come back from being idle, or simply being talked to always at the worst times. I know that sounds mean, and I don’t intend to sound that way.
I basically decided to only log on when I really wanted to chat, and let email serve it’s purpose as a slightly time-delayed and more convenient means of communication. I assumed people IMing me with annoying questions and trivial conversation would decline. Again, not trying to sound rude -I’m sure everyone experiences this type of nonsense from time to time.
However, once my great experiment started, I have noticed my influx of IMs has actually increased since I only log on when I’m around to chat. People see my name log on, and I am immediately bombarded with 10 IMs from different people, regarding a wide range of topics – some trivial, some more important. I then have to put aside all other activities in an attempt to prioritize the new messages, and decide in what order to respond to my friends, family, etc.
While I did load up Adium to chat with friends, it becomes an overwhelming process that I ultimately don’t enjoy as much as if I were “always on”, as it spreads out the influx of IM traffic. I assume it’s a normal reaction on their part however. By only logging on at certain times during the day, I am advertising that I am only “online” to socialize, therefore inviting anyone else with the same goals to contact me the second my client logs me on. I was actually only making the problem worse.
It’s funny how I never put much thought into the whole process – appearing online always actually will decrease the likelihood of a bombardment of IMs, and my little “experiment” failed. I know this is trivial, but I thought I would share my thoughts on the subject, and a link to a related post I stumbled across this afternoon. He makes a lot of points that I never really considered, and some that are fairly obvious.
When in the “always-on” state, one is advertising a significantly different position than one who logs on simply to chat. Just because you are ON your computer does not mean you are there to socialize, but those who log on just to chat many times assume this. Therefore, it’s a “cultural divides” as the author of the linked page points out.
A pretty good read, as he takes my trivial situation and puts a sociology spin on it. Long story short I’ll just use my away message more often.