AOL Instant messenger was a phenomenon when it was first introduced to the public. Since then it has become very common to be one of the primary ways people keep in contact. I believe that the Instant Messenger is a blessing and curse in disguise. According to Tom Tyler,
The ease of online communication may lead to weaker social ties, because people have
less reason to leave their homes and actually interact face to face with other people. The internet
allows people to more easily…form and sustain friendships and even romantic attachments from
their home…engage in political and social-issue based discussion with others from their home
(Tyler p. 196, 2002).
Utilizing Instant messenger does just that. As a member of the instant messenger community I’ve seen people talking to people in the same room as them, but through a computer when they could very easily just speak to them.
The most important part of building relationships is disclosure. Instant messenger as a technology allows people to share their lives with other people in a way that causes much less anxiety than face to face communication. Yifeng Hu et al. mentioned in her Introduction that many people are using instant messenger late at night and also in private, which is leading to more self disclosure. Before instant messenger, people used to get to know each other by talking on the phone or spending time in the other person’s presence. However, as instant messenger was introduced slowly people stopped spending time with each other. I remember that growing up I think instant messenger came out around the time I was 11 or 12. It came at a time when I was still outside playing all day especially during the summer, and not coming inside until my parents called me inside.
Looking back on it now I see that once Instant messenger came around my parents were calling my inside less and less because I was already spending more time inside. My family also did the singular computer for the entire family to use, and having a brother and sister who were just about my age made it hard to find time for me to talk to my friends. I began to go inside earlier because I knew my brother and sister would be outside playing so, I wouldn’t have them complaining about me spending too much time on the computer. I remember back then it was the popular thing for my friends to try to play matchmaker for their other friends, so I definitely talked to my fair share of guys I had never actually met.
Instant messenger didn’t make for the formation of a strong relationship. There are a few factors that are specific to instant messenger that affect the formation of a strong relationship. First, back when I first started using the internet very few people had pictures that they could send to you. I was always wondering what these guys would be lying about, because they would always try to portray themselves as the best thing smoking, which of course wasn’t true at all. Next, I felt like since I didn’t actually know these people we would have these random conversations where we would try to relate to each other, but we mostly ended up just making things up to sound more interesting than we really were.
Instant messenger I think fore certain people has redefined how relationships are formed offline as well. In my group of friends they know that if they want to speak to me they should text me. For some reason I’ve just become so accustomed to typing, that I took it from the computer to my cell phone. I now use cell phones that have QWERTY keyboards because I am so impatient that a normal cell phone just wouldn’t cut it. Even if it’s not a computer mediating my relationships it is some form of technology, and that is the new trend according to Theresa Kasallis.
Citations
Hu, Y. (November 2004). Examining the relationship between instant messaging and intimacy. JCMC, 10, Retrieved October 17, 2008, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/hu.html#fifth
Kasallis, T. (2006 July 6). Text messaging affects student relationships. Retrieved October 17, 2008, from BYU Newsnet Web site: http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/60307
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