During the last weeks we have been studying the effects of Social Media Technologies (SMT). While studying the effects, the focus has been on the positive effects of this new way of communicating. As mentioned in the instructions for this essay, new technologies are either good or bad but rather represent a change. In this essay I will give a pessimistic view on how SMT are eliminating the personal/physical response that has been an important factor in every “person to person” communication in the past. I will dig deeper in the way we use instant messaging services (IMS).
Nowadays almost everybody has at least one kind of IMS active while sitting in front of their computer. By switching my status to online I can tell my friends that I am now available for a chat. During the introduction of IMS, every time I saw somebody “online” I would instantly start a chat with that person. “To be online” was a statement that said “I am here and you may talk to me”. IMS could be compared to a virtual room where my online friends could suddenly “appear. This new virtual room changed the way I saw communication with people through computers. During the days of email, computer communication could be referred to as an environmental alternative for physical mail. When chatting was introduced, it became a cheap and easier way of telephoning to friends. With that said, I would like to point out that chatting has a lot of disadvantages compared to telephoning. The first and most obvious disadvantage is the speed of a response. It takes you some time to write your question and it takes your friend some time to write his answer back. This obviously started the innovation of chatting-abbreviations. It is these abbreviations that, in my opinion, are the negative effects of new SMT. Normally while talking to a person IRL, I directly get the “reward” of a joke by the other person. This is usually represented by a laugh, a positive comment or any other kind of social “reward”. (I just got interrupted from my essay writing because one of my friends logged in and asked me why my status was “busy” on MSN). While chatting the reward is represented by a LOL, ROFL, ALOL, BMGWL and so on (For you people who didn’t understand that, you can find a complete list of abbreviations on: http://www.netlingo.com/emailsh.cfm). I really DO NOT find that response satisfying. Making a joke and telling that to another person requires a lot of work and effort, and it is really annoying to get a simple LOL accompanied by a J as an answer. I think that, SMT are destroying our natural response-behavior. With that said, it is also important to mention the complements to chatting, like webcams, which still give you a visual response on your friends’ reaction.
I think that SMT has evolved from being that “visual room” to a part of your physical room. Nowadays it is totally normal for me to have my friends online and NOT talk to them (that was not the case 10 years ago). 10 years ago a friend online was a representation of that friend physically appearing in my room, while nowadays my online list is a representation of people I CAN/MAY talk to instantly.
The result, of abbreviation as a response, is that I no longer make joke while using IMS. It just isn’t worth it.
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Nowadays it is totally normal for me to have my friends online and NOT talk to them (that was not the case 10 years ago).
So do I. For me, I usually have to chatting tools, msn and QQ. When I was in my first year of college, every friend in QQ will show up when he/she is online, I always had a colorful list in QQ (if the user is appear offline, his/her image would be gray). When we saw each other online, we would start to chat or just say hello. A year or two later, the colorful list became shorter and shorter while the friend list increased. That was because they might be watching a match or do a homework and didn’t want to be disturbed. Whey they appear offline, they could also get my message instantly. After that I started to use msn, what happen to QQ happened again. However I find that more Chinese friends tend to appear offline when they are using MSN. I have no idea about why it is, but I always appear offline when I stay in front of my laptop. When I feel like to talk to some or I have to send some files to others, I will appear online.
Time consuming is really a problem when you use the instant messaging service especially when you have more than one instant messaging service related software. Just take me for example, I have MSN, QQ and Facebook, and it is common for me to run both of them once I turn on my computer. For the QQ, it provides the customers with the group chatting function, once you join in a group, when one member in this group send a message, all the rest members will be forced to receive this message no matter whether they would like to receive it or not. You can be easily disturbed by such kind of service.
What is more, many of the instant messaging service are also combined with the Blogger service. For the QQ account, it is connected to the QQspace. And for the MSN, it is connected to the windows live space. When you want to know about your friends’ latest situation, you can browse their articles or essays or pictures written and pasted in the space. It is common for such software to have the update reminding service, which means that once your friend update an article, there will be a reminder to remind you to check it. Well, browsing the spaces also takes time.Hence, your time would be easily consumed unconsciously. And you are always disturbed by such trifles so that you can not be concentrated on the work or study.
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