Think outside the instant message box :)

  Bonnie Chau Chau is a second-year
English student who’d rather receive e-mails than instant messages.
E-mail her at bchau@media.ucla.edu.
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for more articles by Bonnie Chau

Away messages and smiley faces and warning levels. Profiles and
subprofiles and blocking screennames. We sneer derisively down our
noses at those instant message addicts who live in these IM worlds
of which “normal” people have no concept. But really,
we sneer because we care; we sneer because we recognize ourselves
in these addicts.

This is why we criticize and cringe at the world of IM sounds
and message boxes popping up, a world where all of our friends are
piled like sardines in a column-shaped box on the right side of our
screens.

In this instant messaging world, our friends are at the mercy of
our disposal, each friend with its own little click-me
capabilities. We laugh condescendingly at the lack of IM etiquette,
the profusion of misunderstandings and confusion that occurs. But
then we turn back to our own computer screens and reformat our
screen names for the billionth time. Why? Because it’s
normal. Because you may just be an instant messaging addict.

  KRISTEN GILLETTE/Daily Bruin

Are you really an addict? Do you really want to know? Not only
is there an IM addict survey available at www.IMaddict.com, but now
you also have the option of taking the “Severe Survey”
edition, for those of you who know you’re already beyond the
reach of the normal only-for-the-mildly-addicted format. Within
this informative Web site, you can check out the week’s
featured addict, you can order a T-shirt, but most importantly, you
can answer potentially damning questions about your instant
messaging habits.

Damning as they may seem, away messages and profiles and the
habits that surround them can also be an outlet for creativity.
Sure, there are more conventional means of self-expression, but
this is the 21st century, folks. Profiles and away messages are the
new creative writing, the new bookjacket biography, the new
be-back-in-15 Post-it note on your door.

What would your buddies think of you if you went idle without an
away message? Or used that “I am away from my computer right
now” message? They would be terribly disappointed in you and
would probably never be able to look you in the eye again. They
might even, gasp, relegate you to the bottom of their buddy
lists.

Of course, past a certain point it all amasses into a contest of
who has the most witty/ cryptic/ descriptive/ funny masterpiece of
a profile. At the very least, however, these things promote some
sort of creativity and thought and consideration into what has
turned into representations of our very characters.

The drawbacks are people might start existing so much in these
comfort boxes of witty sayings and phrases they actually begin to
believe they are really that quick and witty in real life.

You pluck these addicts out of their butt-worn chairs and they
start spouting things like LOL and BRB in face-to-face
conversations, and referring to people by their screen names. In
your little alternate IM reality, you are not really so antisocial;
after all, you are connected to dozens of other people via lists
and names and boxes and buttons. Or so you tell yourself, as you
spend the ninth day in a row not leaving the house, engaged in
profound conversation with your new friend the dropout genius
computer hacker from Texas or Saskatchewan.

But if you can take care to avoid the time-sapping pitfalls of
AIM, you might discover that there are some very indispensable
benefits. Everyone has certain people with whom they wouldn’t
be in touch if it weren’t for AIM. And that can be pretty
cool. Instant messaging can be a nice and convenient way to keep
tabs on friends who are far away; obsessively reading away messages
can let you in on what they are up to on a daily basis. You can
read all sorts of obscure song quotes, or find out all sorts of
fascinating facts you never knew you had to know.

As the IM world integrates itself into the real world, the line
between the two is fading fast. Reality has already begun to
embrace instant messaging, and the sooner you do, the sooner you
can join the rest of us.

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