Interesting People mailing list archives
Instant Messaging for Introverts
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 03:58:13 -0700
________________________________________ From: Richard Forno [rforno () infowarrior org] Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:47 PM To: Infowarrior List Cc: David Farber Subject: Instant Messaging for Introverts Opinion | 04 Apr 2008 | Instant Messaging for Introverts by Joe Kissell http://db.tidbits.com/article/9544 This fellow nicely sums up nearly my exact sentiment on Instant Messaging. I thought I was the only one who felt this way!!! More specifically, while I'm not as 100% black-and-white as he writes (ie, I don't mind chatting around when working if I'm so inclined every now and then) this article extract pretty much is my take on the IM thing..... < - >
Unlike many people, when I'm in front of my computer, I'm working, which means I'm concentrating on something. I'm writing an article, or a book, or an email message, trying to come up with exactly the right way to phrase some sentence or express a certain point. Or I'm programming, trying to solve some logic problem. Or I'm reading an article. Whatever the activity, it's something to which I am predisposed to devote my entire attention. If the phone rings, or my wife asks me a question, or an iCal alarm goes off, it breaks my concentration in a way that's frustrating to recover from. I lose my mental place, and it takes me a long time to get back into that same train of thought and finish whatever I was working on. I'm not saying I need to write an entire book without any interruptions, but when my mind is actively juggling information, I need to complete that particular thought (or block of code, or paragraph) before moving on to something else. This is why I love email as a mode of communication. I get many dozens of messages every day, but I can answer them whenever I want. I don't have to look at them right in the middle of this paragraph; I can wait five or ten minutes - it doesn't matter (though in practice, I usually answer email very quickly). Voicemail can make handling phone calls similarly convenient. But instant messaging isn't like that. If my status shows that I'm online, then people expect an immediate response, and even though I could choose not to respond, I'd still have the blinking, bouncing, or beeping notification interrupting my train of thought - it isn't an improvement for me. So in terms of IM status, I never consider myself "available" in the sense of "interruptible." Ever. There is no time of any day, under any circumstances, when I think to myself, "I really don't mind being interrupted now." If I'm not at my computer, then most likely a phone call or a knock at the door won't seem like an interruption. But if I am at my computer, I'm concentrating, which means I'm not "available" - I do mind being interrupted. And if my status shows that I'm unavailable, as it invariably does when I'm logged into iChat, most people will refrain from trying to start a conversation - meaning I might as well be entirely offline.
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- Instant Messaging for Introverts David Farber (May 01)